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I S T R Y 



EEIRY THE FOURTH, 



KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE. 



BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT. 



Wi% 3llti2tratiBti0. 




NEW YORK: 

HARPER «& BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
PEAEL STKEET, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 

1856. 



Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight 
hundred and fifty-six, by 

Harpek & Beothers, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of 
New York. 



^ 






PREFACE. 

History is our Heaven-appointed instructor. 
It is the guide for the future. The calamities 
of yesterday are the protectors of to-day. 

The sea of time we navigate is full of perils. 
But it is not an unknown sea. It has been 
traversed for ages, and there is not a sunken 
rock or a treacherous sand-bar which is not 
marked by the wreck of those who have pre- 
ceded us. — 

There is no portion of history fraught with 
more valuable instruction than the period of 
those terrible religious wars which desolated the 
sixteenth century. There is no romance so 
wild as the veritable history of those times. 
The majestic outgoings of the Almighty, as de- 
veloped in the onward progress of our race, in- 
finitely transcend, in all the elements of pro- 
foundness, mystery, and grandeur, all that man's 
fancy can create. 



viii Preface. 

The cartoons of Raphael are beautiful, but 
what are they when compared with the heav- 
ing ocean, the clouds of sunset, and the pinna- 
cles of the Alps ? The dome of St. Peter's is 
man's noblest architecture, but what is it when 
compared with the magnificent rotunda of the 
skies? 

John S. C. Abbott. 

Brunswick, Maine, 1856. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter Paga 

I. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 13 

II. CIVIL WAR 45 

III. THE MARRIAGE 68 

IV. PREPARATIONS FOR MASSACRE 93 

V. MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW 109 

VI. THE HOUSES OF VALOIS, OF GUISE, AND OF 

BOURBON ' 137 

VII. REIGN OF HENRY Ilh 167 

VIII. THE LEAGUE 196 

IX. THE ASSASSINATION OF THE DUKE OF GUISE 

AND OF HENRY III 220 

X. WAR AND WOE 256 

XI. THE CONVERSION OF THE KING . . . _ . 281 

XII. THE REIGN OF HENRY IV. AND HIS DEATH . . - 306 



ENGRAVINGS. 



Page 
THE BIRTH OF HENRY OF NAVARRE 19 

THE FLIGHT OF THE QUEEN OF NAVARRE 52 

THE MARRIAGE . 87 

THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW 115 

THE ASSASSINATION OF FRANCIS, DUKE OF GUISE 161 

THE ASSASSINATION OF HENRY, DUKE OF GUISE 228 

THE ASSASSINATION OF HENRY III. 238 

THE ACT OF ABJURING PROTESTANTISM 292 

THE RECONCILIATION WITH MAYENNE 309 



KING HENRY IV. 

Chapter I. 
Childhood and Youth. 

Navarre. 

ABOUT four hundred years ago there was 
a small kingdom, spreading over the cliffs 
and ravines of the eastern extremity of the Pyr- 
enees, called Navarre. Its population, of about 
five hundred thousand, consisted of a very sim- 
ple, frugal, and industrious people. Those who 
lived upon the shore washed by the ^ormy 
waves of the Bay of Biscay gratified their love 
of excitement and of adventure by braving the 
perils of the sea. Those who lived in the sol- 
itude of the interior, on the sunny slopes of the 
mountains, or by the streams which meandered 
through the verdant valleys, fed their flocks, 
and harvested their grain, and pressed rich wine 
from the grapes of their vineyards, in the en- 
joyment of the most pleasant duties of rural 
life. Proud of their independence, they wer§ 



14 King Henry IV. [1475. 

Catharine de Foix. Ferdinand and Isabella. 

ever ready to grasp arms to repel foreign ag- 
gression. Tlie throne of this kingdom was, at 
the time of which we speak, occupied by Cath- 
arine de Foix. She was a widow, and all her 
hopes and affections were centred in her son 
Henry, an ardent and impetuous Iboy six or 
seven years of age, who was to receive the 
crown when it should fall from her Ibrow, and 
transmit to posterity their ancestral honors. 

Ferdinand of Aragon had just married Isa- 
bella of Castile, and had thus united those two 
populous and wealthy kingdoms ; and now, in 
the arrogance of power, seized with the pride of 
annexation, he began to look with a wistful eye 
upon the picturesque kingdom of Navarre. Its 
comparative feebleness, under the reign of a be- 
reaved woman weary of the world, invited to 
the enterprise. Should he grasp at the whole 
territory of the little realm, France might inter- 
pose her powerful remonstrance. Should he 
take but the half which was spread out upon 
the southern declivity of the Pyrenees, it would 
be virtually saying to the French monarch, 
"The rest I courteously leave for you." The 
armies of Spain were soon sweeping resistlessly 
through these sunny valleys, and one half of 
her empire was ruthlessly torn from the Queen 



1475.] Childhood and Youth. 15 

Dismemberment of Navarre. Plans for revenge. 

of Navarre, and transferred to the dominion of 
imperious Castile and Aragon. 

Catharine retired with her child to the colder 
and more uncongenial regions of the northern 
declivity of the mountains. Her bosom glow- 
ed with mortification and rage in view of her 
hopeless defeat. As she sat down gloomily in 
the small portion which remained to her of her 
dismembered empire, she endeavored to foster 
in the heart of her son the spirit of revenge, 
and to inspire him with the resolution to regain 
those lost leagues of territory which had been 
wrested from the inheritance of his fathers. 
Henry imbibed his mother's spirit, and chafed 
and fretted under wrongs for which he could ob- 
tain no redress. Ferdinand and Isabella could 
not be annoyed even by any force which feeble 
Navarre could raise. Queen Catharine, howev- 
er, brooded deeply over her wrongs, and laid 
plans for retributions of revenge, the execution 
of which she knew must be deferred till long 
after her body should have mouldered to dust 
in the grave. She courted the most intimate 
alliance with Francis I., King of France. She 
contemplated the merging of her own little king- 
dom into that powerful monarchy, that the in- 
fant Navarre, having grown into the giant 



16 KiNa Heney IV. [1553. 



Death of Catharine. Marriage of Henry and Margaret. 

France, might crush the Spanish tyrants into 
humiliation. Nerved by this determined spirit 
of revenge, and inspired by a mother's ambi- 
tion, she intrigued to wed her son to the heir- 
ess of the French throne, that even in the world 
of spirits she might be cheered by seeing Hen- 
ry heading the armies of France, the terrible 
avenger of her wrongs. These hopes invigor- 
ated her until the fitful dream of her joyless 
life was terminated, and her restless spirit sank 
into the repose of the grave. She lived, how- 
ever, to see her plans apparently in progress to- 
ward their most successful fulfillment, 

Henry, her son, was married to Margaret, the 
favorite sister of the King of France. Their 
nuptials were blessed with but one child, Jeanne 
d'Albret. This child, in whose destiny such 
ambitious hopes were centred, bloomed into most 
marvelous beauty, and became also as conspic- 
uous for her mental endowments as for her per- 
sonal charms. She had hardly emerged from 
the period of childhood when she was married 
to Antony of Bourbon, a near relative of the 
royal family of France. Immediately after her 
marriage she left Navarre with her husband, to 
take up her residence in the French metropolis. 

One hope still lived, with undying vigor, in 



1553.] Childhood and Youth. 17 

Lingering hopes of Henry. Jeanne returns to Navarre. 

the bosom of Henry. It was the hope, the in- 
tense passion, with which his departed mother 
had inspired him, that a grandson woujd arise 
from this union, who would, with the spirit of 
Hannibal, avenge the family wrongs upon Spain. 
Twice Henry took a grandson into his arms 
with the feeling that the great desire of his life 
was about to be realized ; and twice, with almost 
a broken heart, he saw these hopes blighted as 
he committed the little ones to the grave. 

Summers and winters had now lingered wea- 
rily away, and Henry had become an old man. 
Disappointment and care had worn down his 
frame. World-weary and joyless, he still clung 
to hope. The tidings that Jeanne was again to 
become a mother rekindled the lustre of his fad- 
ing eye. The aged king sent importunately for 
his daughter to return without delay to the pa- 
ternal castle, that the child might be born in the 
kingdom of Navarre, whose wrongs it was to be 
his peculiar destiny to avenge. It was mid- 
winter. The journey was long and the roads 
rough. But the dutiful and energetic Jeanne 
promptly obeyed the wishes of her father, and 
hastened to his court. 

Henry could hardly restrain his impatience as 
he waited, week after week, for the advent of the 

B 



18 King Heney IV. [1553. 

Birth of Henry IV. The royal nurse. 

long-looked-for avenger. With the characteris- 
tic superstition of the times, he constrained his 
daughter to promise that, at the period of birth, 
during the most painful moments of her trial, 
she would sing a mirthful and triumphant song, 
that her child might possess a sanguine, joyous, 
and energetic spirit. 

Henry entertained not a doubt that the child 
would prove a boy, commissioned by Providence 
as the avenger of Navarre. The old king re- 
ceived the child, at the moment of its birth, into 
his own arms, totally regardless of a mother's 
rights, and exultingly enveloping it in soft folds, 
bore it off, as his own property, to his private 
apartment. He rubbed the lips of the plump 
little boy with garlic, and then taking a golden 
goblet of generous wine, the rough and royal 
nurse forced the beverage he loved so well down 
the untainted throat of his new-born heir. 

"A little good old wine," said the doting 
grandfather, "will make the boy vigorous and 
brave." 

We may remark, in passing, that it was wine, 
rich and pure ; not that mixture of all abomina- 
tions, whose only vintage is in cellars, sunless, 
damp, and fetid, where guilty men fabricate poi- 
son for a nation. 



1553.] Childhood and Youth. 21 

Name chosen for the young prince. 

This little stranger received the ancestral 
name of Henry. By his subsequent exploits 
he filled the world with his renown. He was 
the first of the Bourbon line who ascended the 
throne of France, and he swayed the sceptre of 
energetic rule over that wide-spread realm with 
a degree of power and grandeur which none of 
his descendants have ever rivaled. The name 
of Henry IV. is one of the most illustrious in 
the annals of France. The story of his strug- 
gles for the attainment of the throne of Charle- 
magne is full of interest. His birth, to which 
we have just alluded, occurred at Parr, in the 
kingdom of Navarre, in the year 1553. 

His grandfather immediately assumed the di- 
rection of every thing relating to the child, ap- 
parently without the slightest consciousness 
that either the father or the mother of Henry had 
any prior claims. The king possessed, among 
the wild and romantic fastnesses of the mount- 
ains, a strong old castle, as rugged and frown- 
ing as the eternal granite upon which its foun- 
dations were laid. Gloomy evergreens clung to 
the hill-sides. A mountain stream, often swollen 
to an impetuous torrent by the autumnal rains 
and the spring thaws, swept through the little 
verdant lawn, which smiled amid the stern sub- 



22 King Henry IV. [1560. 



The castle of Courasse. 



limities surrounding this venerable and moss- 
covered fortress. Around the solitary towers 
the eagles wheeled and screamed in harmony 
with the gales and storms which often swept 
through these wild regions. The expanse around 
was sparsely settled by a few hardy peasants, 
who, by feeding their herds, and cultivating lit- 
tle patches of soil among the crags, obtained a 
humble living, and by exercise and the pure 
mountain air acquired a vigor and an athletic 
hardihood of frame which had given them much 
celebrity. 

To the storm-battered castle of Courasse, thus 
lowering in congenial gloom among these rocks, 
the old king sent the infant Henry to be nur- 
tured as a peasant-boy, that, by frugal fare and 
exposure to hardship, he might acquire a peas- 
ant's robust frame. He resolved that no French 
delicacies should enfeeble the constitution of 
this noble child. Bareheaded and barefooted, 
the young prince, as yet hardly emerging from 
infancy, rolled upon the grass, played with the 
poultry, and the dogs, and the sturdy young 
mountaineers, and plunged into the brook or 
paddled in the pools of water with which tlie 
mountain showers often filled the court-yard. 
His hair was bleached and his cheeks bronzed 



1562.] Childhood and Youth. 23 

Education of Henry. Death of the King of Navarre. 

by the sun and the wind; Few would have im- 
agined that the unattractive child, with his un- 
shorn locks and in his studiously neglected garb, 
was the descendant of a long line of kings, and 
was destined to eclipse them all by the grand- 
eur of his name. 

As years glided along he advanced to ener- 
getic boyhood, the constant companion, and, in 
all his sports and modes of life, the equal of 
the peasant -boys by whom he was surround- 
ed. He hardly wore a better dress than they ; 
he was nourished with the same coarse fare. 
With them he climbed the mountains, and leap- 
ed the streams, and swung upon the trees. He 
struggled with his youthful competitors in all 
their athletic games, running, wrestling, pitch- 
ing the quoit, and tossing the bar. This active 
out-door exercise gave a relish to the coarse food 
of the peasants, consisting of brown bread, beef, 
cheese, and garlic. His grandfather had decided 
that this regimen was essential for the educa- 
tion of a prince who was to humble the proud 
monarchy of Spain, and regain the territory 
which had been so unjustly wrested from his 
ancestors. 

When Henry was about six years of age, his 
grandfather, by gradual decay, sank sorrowing- 



24 King Henry IV. [1558. 

Jeanne d'Albret ascends the throne. Residence in Beam. 

ly into his grave. Consequently, his mother, 
Jeanne d'Albret, ascended the throne of Navarre. 
Her husband, Antony of Bourbon, was a rough, 
fearless old soldier, with nothing to distinguish 
him from the multitude who do but live, fight, 
and die. Jeanne and her husband were in Par- 
is at the time of the death of her father. They 
immediately hastened to Beam, the capital of 
Navarre, to take possession of the dominions 
which had thus descended to them. The little 
Henry was then brought from his wild mount- 
ain home to reside with his mother in the royal 
palace. Though Navarre was but a feeble king- 
dom, the grandeur of its court was said to have 
been unsurpassed, at that time, by that of any 
other in Europe. The intellectual education of 
Henry had been almost entirely neglected ; but 
the hardihood of his body had given such vigor 
and energy to his mind, that he was now pre- 
pared to distance in intellectual pursuits, with 
perfect ease, those whose infantile brains had 
been overtasked with study. 

Henry remained in Beam with his parents 
two years, and in that time ingrafted many 
courtly graces upon the free and fetterless car- 
riage he had acquired among the mountains. 
His mind expanded with remarkable rapidity, 



1558.] Childhood and Youth. 25 

Marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots. Betrothal of Henry. 

and lie became one of the most beautiful and 
engaging of children. 

About this time Mary, Queen of Scots, was 
to be married to the Dauphin Francis, son of 
the King of France. Their nuptials were to be 
celebrated with great magnificence. The King 
and Queen of Navarre returned to the court of 
France to attend the marriage. They took with 
them their son. His beauty and vivacity ex- 
cited much admiration in the French metropolis. 
One day the young prince, then but six or sev- 
en years of age, came running into the room 
where his father and Henry II. of France were 
conversing, and, by his artlessness and grace, 
strongly attracted the attention of the French 
monarch. The king fondly took the playfal 
child in his arms, and said affectionately, 

" Will you be my son ?" 

"No, sire, no! that is my father," replied 
the ardent boy, pointing to the King of Na- 
varre. 

"Well, then, will you be my son-in-law?" de- 
manded Henry. 

" Oh yes, most willingly," the prince replied. 

Henry II. had a daughter Marguerite, a year 
or two younger than the Prince of Navarre, and 
it was immediately resolved between the tvro 



26 King Heney IV. [1558. 

Henry's tutor. Eemark of Dr. Johnson. 

parents that the young princes should be con- 
sidered as betrothed. 

Soon after this the King and Queen of Na- 
varre, with their son, returned to the mountain- 
ous domain which Jeanne so ardently loved. 
The queen devoted herself assiduously to the 
education of the young prince, providing for him 
the ablest teachers whom that age could afford. 
A gentleman of very distinguished attainments, 
named La Gaucherie, undertook the general su- 
perintendence of his studies. The young prince 
was at this time an exceedingly energetic, active, 
ambitious boy, very inquisitive respecting all 
matters of information, and passionately fond 
of study. 

Dr. Johnson, with his rough and impetuous 
severity, has said, 

" It is impossible to get Latin into a boy un- 
less you flog it into him." 

The experience of La Gaucherie, however, did 
not confirm this sentiment. Henry always went 
with alacrity to his Latin and his Greek. His 
judicious teacher did not disgust his mind with 
long and laborious rules, but introduced him at 
once to words and phrases, while gradually he 
developed the grammatical structure of the lan- 
guage. The vigorous mind of Henry, grasping 



1560.] Childhood and Youth. 27 

Henry's motto. La Gaucherie's method of instruction. 

eagerly at intellectual culture, made rapid prog- 
ress, and lie was soon able to read and write 
both Latin and Greek with fluency, and ever re- 
tained the power of quoting, with great facility 
and appositeness, from the classical writers of 
Athens and of Rome. Even in these early days 
he seized upon the Greek phrase "?) vifcav i] 
drcodavelv,''^ to conquer or to die, and adopted it 
for his motto. 

La Gaucherie was warmly attached to the 
principles of the Protestant faith. He made a 
companion of his noble pupil, and taught him 
by conversation in pleasant walks and rides as 
well as by books. It was his practice to have 
him commit to memory any fine passage in 
prose or verse which inculcated generous and 
lofty ideas. The mind of Henry thus became 
filled with beautiful images and noble senti- 
ments from the classic writers of France. These 
gems of literature exerted a powerful influence 
in moulding his character, and he was fond of 
quoting them as the guide of his life. Such 
passages as the following were frequently on 
the lips of the young prince i 

" Over their subjects princes bear the rule, 
But God, more mighty, governs kings themselves." 

Soon after the return of the King and Queen 



28 King Henry IV. [1560. 

Death of Henry II. Catharine de Medicis regent. 

of Navarre to their own kingdom, Henry II. 
of France died, leaving the crown to his son 
Charles, a feeble boy both in body and in mind. 
As Charles was but ten or twelve years of age, 
his mother, Catharine de Medicis, was appoint- 
ed regent during his minority. Catharine was 
a woman of great strength of mind, but of the 
utmost depravity of heart. There was no crime 
ambition could instigate her to commit from 
which, in the slightest degree, she would recoil. 
Perhaps the history of the world retains not an- 
other instance in which a mother could so far 
forget the yearnings of nature as to endeavor, 
studiously and perseveringly, to deprave the 
morals, and by vice to enfeeble the constitu- 
tion of her son, that she might retain the power 
which belonged to him. This proud and dis- 
solute woman looked with great solicitude upon 
the enterprising and energetic spirits of the 
young Prince of Navarre. There were many 
providential indications that ere long Henry 
would be a prominent candidate for the throne 
of France. 

Plutarch's Lives of Ancient Heroes has per- 
haps been more influential than any other un- 
inspired book in invigorating genius and in en- 
kindling a passion for great achievements. Na- 



1560.] Childhood and Youth. 29 

Influence of Plutarch. Religious agitation. 

poleon was a careful student and a great ad- 
mirer of Plutarcli. His spirit was entranced 
with the grandeur of the Greek and Roman he- 
roes, and they were ever to him as companions 
and bosom friends. During the whole of his 
stormy career, their examples animated him, and 
his addresses and proclamations were often in- 
vigorated by happy quotations from classic sto- 
ry. Henry, with similar exaltation of genius, 
read and re-read the pages of Plutarch with the 
most absorbing delight. Catharine, with an 
eagle eye, watched these indications of a lofty 
mind. Her solicitude was roused lest the young 
Prince of Navarre should, with his commanding 
genius, supplant her degenerate house. 

At the close of the sixteenth century, the pe- 
riod of which we write, all Europe was agitated 
by the great controversy between the Catholics 
and the Protestants. The writings of Luther, 
Calvin, and other reformers had aroused the at- 
tention of the whole Christian world. In En- 
gland and Scotland the ancient faith had been 
overthrown, and the doctrines of the Reforma- 
tion were, in those kingdoms, established. In 
France, where the writings of Calvin had been 
extensively circulated, the Protestants had also 
become quite numerous, embracing generally 



30 King Heney IV. [1560. 

The Huguenots. The present controversy. 

the most intelligent portion of the populace. 
The Protestants were in France called Hugue- 
nots, but for what reason is not now known. 
They were sustained by many noble families, 
and had for their leaders the Prince of Gonde, 
iVdmiral Coligni, and the house of Navarre. 
There were arrayed against them the power of 
the crown, many of the most powerful nobles, 
and conspicuously the almost regal house of 
Guise. 

It is perhaps difficult for a Protestant to write 
upon this subject with perfect impartiality, how- 
ever earnestly he may desire to do so. The 
lapse of two hundred years has not terminated 
the great conflict. The surging strife has swept 
across the ocean, and even now, with more or 
less of vehemence, rages in all the states of this 
new world. Though the weapons of blood are 
laid aside, the mighty controversy is still unde- 
cided. 

The advocates of the old faith were determ- 
ined to maintain their creed, and to force all to 
its adoption, at whatever price. They deemed 
heresy the greatest of all crimes, and thought — 
and doubtless many conscientiously thought — 
that it should be exterminated even by the pains 
of torture and death. The French Parliament 



1560.] Childhood and Youth. 31 

The Sorbonne. Purging the empire, 

adopted for its motto, '-''One religion, one lavj, 
one king.'''' They declared that two religions 
could no more be endured in a kingdom than 
two governments. 

At Paris there was a celebrated theological ' 
school called the Sorbonne. It included in its 
faculty the most distinguished doctors of the 
Catholic Church. The decisions and the de- 
crees of the Sorbonne were esteemed highly au- 
thoritative. The views of the Sorbonne were al- 
most invariably asked in reference to any meas- 
ures affecting the Church. 

In 1525 the court presented the following 
question to the Sorbonne: '^Hovj can we sup- 
press and extirpate the damnable doctrine of 
Luther from this very Christian Jcingdom, and 
purge it from it entirely?^'' 

The prompt reply was, "TAe heresy has al- 
ready been endured too long. It must be pur- 
sued with the extremest mgor, or it will over- 
throw the throne,'''^ 

Two years after this. Pope Clement YII. sent 
a communication to the Parliament of Paris, 
stating, 

"It is necessary, in this great and astound- 
ing disorder, which arises from the rage of Sa- 
tan, and from the fury and impiety of his instni- 



32 King Henry IV. [1533. 

The burning chamber. Persecution of the Protestants. 

merits, that every body exert himself to guard 
the common safety, seeing that this madness 
would not only embroil and destroy religion, 
but also all principality, nobility, laws, orders, 
♦ and ranks." 

The Protestants were pursued by the most 
unrelenting persecution. The Parliament estab- 
lished a court called tlie burning chainher^ be- 
cause all who were convicted of heresy were 
burned. The estates of those who, to save their 
lives, fled from the kingdom, were sold, and their 
children, who were left behind, were pursued 
with merciless cruelty. 

The Protestants, with boldness which relig- 
ious faith alone could inspire, braved all these 
perils. They resolutely declared that the Bible 
taught their faith, and their faith only, and that 
no earthly power could compel them to swerve 
from the truth. Notwithstanding the perils of 
exile, torture, and death, they persisted in preach- 
ing what they considered the pure Gospel of 
Christ. In 1533 Calvin was driven from Paris. 
When one said to him, " Mass must be true, 
since it is celebrated in all Christendom ;" lie 
replied, pointing to the Bible, 

*' There is my mass." Then raising his eyes 
to heaven, he solemnly said, " O Lord, if in 



1535.] Childhood and Yot-rir. 3'i 



fjalvin and hin writjii^; ;. 



the day of judgment thou chargest me with not 
having been at mass, I will say to thee witli 
tnith, ' Lord, thou hast not commanded it. Be- 
hold tliy law. In it I have not found any other 
sacrifice than that which was immolated on the* 
altar of the cross. ' " 

In 1535 Calvin's celebrated "Institutes of 
the Christian Ilcligion" were published, the great 
reformer then residing in the city of Basle. 
This great work became the banner of the Prot- 
estants of France. It was read with avidity in 
the cottage of the peasant, in the work-shop of 
the artisan, and in the chateau of the noble. In 
reference to this extraordinary man, of whom it 
has been said, 

"On Calvin some tliink Heaven's own mantle fell, 
While others deem him instrument of hell," 

Theodore Beza writes, " I do not believe that 
his equal can be found, l^esides preaching ev- 
ery day from week to week, very often, and as 
much as he was able, he preached twice every 
Sunday. He lectured on theology three times 
a week. He delivered addresses to the Consist- 
ory, and also instructed at length every Friday 
before the Bible Conference, which we call the 
congregation. He continued this course so con- 
stantly that he never failed a single time except 

c 



34 


King 


Henry 


IV. 


1564. 


Calvin' £ 


1 physical debility. 






Continued labors. 



in extreme illness. Moreover, who could re- 
count his other common or extraordinary la- 
bors ? I know of no man of our age who has 
had more to hear, to answer, to write, nor things 
of greater importance. The number and qual- 
ity of his writings alone is enough to astonish 
any man who sees them, and still more those 
who read them. And what renders his labors 
still more astonishing is, that he had a body so 
feeble by nature, so debilitated by night labors 
^ and too great abstemiousness, and, what is more, 
subject to so many maladies, that no man who 
saw him could understand how he had lived so 
long. And yet, for all that, he never ceased to 
labor night and day in the work of the Lord. 
We entreated him to have more regard for him- 
self; but his ordinary reply was that he was do- 
ing nothing, and that we should allow God to 
Hnd him always watching, and working as he 
could to his latest breath." 

Calvin died in 1564, eleven years after the 
birth of Henry of Navarre, at the age of fifty- 
five. For several years he was so abstemious 
that he had eaten but one meal a day.* 

* In reference to the execution of Servetus for heresy, an 
event which, in the estimation of many, has seriously tar- 
nished the reputation of Calvin, the celebrated French his- 



1560.J Childhood and Youth. 35 

Inhabitants of France. Execution of Servetus. 

At this time the overwhelming majority of 
the inhabitants of France were Catholics — it has 
generally been estimated a hundred to one ; but 
the doctrines of the reformers gained ground un- 
til, toward the close of the century, about the 
time of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, the 
Protestants composed about one sixth of the 
population. 

The storm of persecution which fell upon 
them was so terrible that they were compelled 
to protect themselves by force of arms. Grad- 
ually they gained the ascendency in several cit- 
ies, which they fortified, and where they pro- 

torian, M. Mignet, in a very able dissertation, establishes the 
following points : 

1. Servetus was not an ordinary heretic ; he was a bold 
pantheist, and outraged the dogma of all Christian commun- 
ions by saying that God, in three persons, was a Cerberus, 
a monster with three heads, 2. He had already been con- 
demned to death by the Catholic doctors at Vienne in Dau- 
phiny. 3. The affair was judged, not by Calvin, but by the 
magistrates of Geneva ; and if it is objected that his advice 
must have influenced their decision, it is necessaiy to recol- 
lect that the councils of the other reformed cantons of Switz- 
erland approved the sentence with a unanimous voice. 4. 
It was of the utmost importance for the Reformation to sep- 
arate distinctly its cause from that of such an unbeliever as 
Servetus. The Catholic Church, which in our day accuses 
Calvin of having participated in his condemnation, much 
more would have accused him, in the sixteenth century, 
with having solicited his acquittal. 



36 King 


Henry IV. 


[1560. 


Antony of Bourbon. 




Jeanne d'Albret. 



tected refugees from the persecution which had 
driven them from the cities where the Catholics 
predominated. Such was the deplorable con- 
dition of France at the time of which we write. 

In the little kingdom of Navarre, which was 
but about one third as large as the State of 
Massachusetts, and which, since its dismember- 
ment, contained less than three hundred thou- 
sand inhabitants, nearly every individual was a 
Protestant. Antony of Bourbon, who had mar- 
ried the queen, was a Frenchman. Witli him, 
as with many otliers in that day, religion was 
merely a badge of party politics. Antony spent 
much of his time in the voluptuous court of 
France, and as he was, of course, solicitous for 
popularity there, he espoused the Catholic side 
of the controversy. 

Jeanne d'Albret was energetically a Protest- 
ant. Apparently, her faith was founded in deep 
religions conviction. When Catharine of ]\Ied- 
ici advised her to follow her husband into the 
Catholic Church, she replied wdth firmness, 

" Madam, sooner than ever go to mass, if I 
had my kingdom and my son both in my hands, 
I would hurl them to the bottom of the sea be- 
fore they should change my purpose." 

Jeanne had been married to Antony merely 



1560.] Childhood and Youth. 37 

The separation. DiflFcrent life. 

as a matter of state policy. There was noth- 
ing in his character to win a noble woman's 
love. With no social or religious sympathies, 
they lived together for a time in a state of re- 
spectful indifference ; but the court of Navarre 
was too quiet and religious to satisfy the taste 
of the voluptuous Parisian. He consequently 
spent most of his time enjoying the gayeties of 
the metropolis of France. A separation, mutu- 
ally and amicably agreed upon, was the result. 

Antony conveyed with him to Paris his son 
Henry, and there took up his residence. Amidst 
the changes and the fluctuations of the ever- 
agitated metropolis, he eagerly watched for op- 
portunities to advance his own fame and for- 
tune. As Jeanne took leave of her beloved 
child, she embraced him tenderly, and with tears 
entreated him never to abandon the faith in 
which he had been educated. 

Jeanne d'Albret, with her little daughter, re- 
mained in the less splendid but more moral and 
refined metropolis of her paternal domain. ' A 
mother's solicitude and prayers, however, follow- 
ed her son. Antony consented to retain as a 
tutor for Henry the wise and learned La Gau- 
cherie, who was himself strongly attached to the 
refoiTned religion. 



38 King Heney IV. [1560. 

Rage of the Pope. Growtli of Protestantism. 

_ ■ , - ■ — — .< 

The inflexibility of Jeanne d'Albret, and the 
refuge she ever cheerfully afforded to the perse- 
cuted Protestants, quite enraged the Pope. As 
a measure of intimidation, he at one time sum- 
moned her as a heretic to appear before the In- 
quisition within six months, under penalty of 
losing her crown and her possessions. Jeanne, 
unawed by the threat, appealed to the monarchs 
of Europe for protection. None were disposed 
in that age to encourage such arrogant claims, 
and Pope Pius VI. was compelled to moderate 
his haughty tone. A plot, however, was then 
formed to seize her and her children, and hand 
them over to the "tender mercies" of the Span- 
ish Inquisition. But this plot also failed. 

In Paris itself there were many bold Protest- 
ant nobles who, with arms at their side, and stout 
retainers around them, kept personal persecu- 
tion at bay. They were generally men of com- 
manding character, of intelligence and integri- 
ty. The new religion, throughout the country, 
was manifestly growing fast in strength, and at 
times, even in the saloons of the palace, the rival 
parties were pretty nearly balanced. Although, 
throughout the kingdom of France, the Catho- 
lics were vastly more numerous than the Prot- 
estants, yet as England and much of Germany 



1560. J Childhood and Youth. 89 

Catiiariiie's blandiKhiiiontrt. Undecided action. 

had warmly espoused the cause of the reform- 
ers, it was perhaps difficult to decide which par- 
ty, on the whole, in Europe, was the strongest. 
Nobles and princes of the highest rank were, in 
all parts of Europe, ranged under either banner. 
In the two factions thus contending for domin- 
ion, there were, of course, some who were not 
much influenced by conscientious considera- 
tions, but who were merely struggling for polit- 
ical power. 

When Henry first arrived in Paris, Catharine 
kept a constant watch over his words and his 
actions. She spared no possible efforts to bring 
him under her entire control. Efforts were 
made to lead his teacher to check his enthusi- 
asm for lofty exploits, and to surrender him to 
the claims of frivolous amusement. This de- 
testable queen presented before the impassion- 
ed young man all the blandishments of female 
beauty, that she might betray him to licentiouF. 
indulgence. In some of these infamous arts 
she was but too successful. 

Catharine, in her ambitious projects, was oft- 
en undecided as to which cause she should es- 
pouse and which party she should call to her 
aid. At one time she would favor the Protest- 
ants, and again the Catholics. At about this 



40 King Heney IV. [1562. 

Seizure of the queen. Civil war. 

time she suddenly turned to the Protestants, 
and courted them so decidedly as greatly to 
alarm and exasperate the Catholics. Some of 
the Catholic nobles formed a conspiracy, and 
seized Catharine and her son at the palace of 
Fontainebleau, and held them both as captives. 
The proud queen was almost frantic with indig- 
nation at the insult. 

The Protestants, conscious that the conspir- 
acy was aimed against them, rallied for the de- 
fense of the queen. The Catholics all over the 
kingdom sprang to arms. A bloody civil war 
ensued. Nearly all Europe was drawn into the 
conflict. Germany and England came with ea- 
ger armies to the aid of the Protestants. Cath- 
arine hated the proud and haughty Elizabeth, 
England's domineering queen, and was very 
jealous of her fame and power. She resolved 
that she would not be indebted to her ambitious 
rival for aid. She therefore, most strangely, 
threw herself into the arms of the Catholics^ 
and ardently espoused their cause. The Prot- 
estants soon found her, with all the energy of 
her powerful mind, heading their foes. France 
was deluged in blood. 

A large number of Protestants threw them- 
selves into Rouen. Antony of Bourbon headed 



1562.] Childhood and Youth. 41 

Death of Antony of Bourbon. Effects of the war. 

an army of the Catholics to besiege the city. 
A ball struck him, and he fell senseless to the 
ground. His attendants placed him, covered 
with blood, in a carriage, to convey him to a 
hospital. While in the carriage and jostling 
over the rough ground, and as the thunders of 
the cannonade were pealing in his ears, the spir- 
it of the blood-stained soldier ascended to the 
tribunal of the God of Peace. Henry was now 
left fatherless, and subject entirely to the con- 
trol of his mother, whom he most tenderly loved, 
and whose views, as one of the most prominent 
leaders of the Protestant party, he was strong- 
ly inclined to espouse. 

The sanguinary conflict still raged with un- 
abated violence throughout the whole kingdom, 
arming brother against brother, friend against 
friend. Churches were sacked and destroyed ; 
vast extents of country were almost depopu- 
lated ; cities were surrendered to pillage, and 
atrocities innumerable perpetrated, from which 
it would seem that even fiends would revolt. 
France was filled with smouldering ruins ; and 
the wailing cry of widows and of orphans, thus 
made by the wrath of man, ascended from every 
plain and every hill-side to the ear of that God 
who has said, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
as thvself." 



42 King Henry IV. [1562. 

Liberty of worship. Indignation and animosity. 

At last both parties were weary of the hor- 
rid strife. The Catholics were struggling to 
extirpate what they deemed ruinous heresy from 
the kingdom. The Protestants were repelling 
the assault, and contending, not for general lib- 
erty of conscience, but that their doctrines were 
true^ and therefore should be sustained. Terms 
of accommodation were proposed, and the Cath- 
olics made the great concession, as they regard- 
ed it, of allowing the Protestants to conduct 
public worship outside of the walls of towns. 
The Protestants accepted these terms, and 
sheathed the sword ; but many of the more fa- 
natic Catholics were greatly enraged at this tol- 
eration. The Guises, the most arrogant family 
of nobles the world has ever known, retired from 
Paris in indignation, declaring that they would 
not witness such a triumph of heresy. The 
decree which granted this poor boon was the fa- 
mous edict of January, 1562, issued from St. 
Grermain. But such a peace as this could only 
be a truce caused by exhaustion. Deep-seated 
animosity still rankled in the bosom of both 
parties ; and, notwithstanding all the woes which 
desolating wars had engendered, the spirit of 
religious intolerance was eager again to grasp 
the weapons of deadly strife. 



1562.] Childhood and Youth. 43 

Eeligious toleration. Belief of the Romanists. 

During tlie sixteenth century the doctrine of 
religious toleration was recognized by no one. 
That great truth had not then even dawned 
upon the world. The noble toleration so earn- 
estly advocated by Bayle and Locke a century 
later, was almost a new revelation to the human 
mind ; but in the sixteenth century it would 
have been regarded as impious, and rebellion 
against God to have affirmed that error was. 
not to be pursued and punished. The reform- 
ers did not advocate the view that a man had a 
right to believe what he pleased, and to dissem- 
inate that belief. They only declared that they 
were bound, at all hazards, to believe the truth; 
that the views which they cherished were true^ 
and that therefore they should be protected in 
them. They appealed to the Bible, and chal- 
lenged their adversaries to meet them there. 
Our fathers must not be condemned for not be- 
ing in advance of the age in which they lived. 
That toleration which allows a man to adopt, 
without any civil disabilities, any mode of wor- 
ship that does not disturb the peace of society, 
exists, as we believe, only in the United States. 
Even in England Dissenters are excluded from 
many privileges. Throughout the whole of 
Catholic Europe no religious toleration is rec- 



44 King Heney IV. [1562. 

Estalblisliment of freedom of conscience. 

ognized. The Emperor Napoleon, during his 
reign, estabKshed the most perfect freedom of 
conscience in every government his influence 
could control. His downfall re-established 
through Europe the dominion of intolerance. 

The Reformation, in contending for the right 
of private judgment in contradiction to the 
claims of councils, maintained a principle which 
necessarily involved the freedom of conscience. 
This was not then perceived ; but time devel- 
oped the truth. The Reformation became, in 
reality, the mother of all religious liberty. 



Civil Wae. 45 

Henry but little acquainted with his parents. Indecision of Henry. 



Chapter IL 
Civil War. 

WHILE France was thus deluged with the 
blood of a civil war, young Henry was 
busily pursu.ing his studies in college. He 
could have had but little affection for his father, 
for the stem soldier had passed most of his 
days in the tented field, and his son had hardly 
known him. From his mother he had long been 
separated ; but he cherished her memory with 
affectionate r.egard, and his predilections strong- 
ly inclined him toward the faith which he knew 
that she had so warmly espoused. It was, how- 
ever, in its political aspects that Henry mainly 
contemplated the question. He regarded the 
two sects merely as two political parties strug- 
gling for power. For some time he did not ven- 
ture to commit himself openly, but, availing him- 
self of the privilege of his youth, carefully stud- 
ied the principles and the prospects of the con- 
tending factions, patiently waiting for the time 
to come in which he should introduce his strong 
arm into the conflict. Each party, aware that 



46 King Henry IV. 

Hjrpocrisy of Catharine. She desires to save Henry. 

his parents had espoused opposite sides, and re- 
garding him as an invaluable accession to either 
cause, adopted all possible allurements to win 
his favor. 

Catharine, as unprincipled as she was ambi- 
tious, invited him to her court, lavished upon 
him, with queenly profusion, caresses and flat- 
tery, and enticed him with all those blandish- 
ments which might most effectually enthrall the 
impassioned spirit of youth. Voluptuousness, 
gilded with its most dazzling and deceitful en- 
chantments, was studiously presented to his 
eye. The queen was all love and complaisance. 
She received him to her cabinet council. She 
affected to regard him as her chief confidant. 
She had already formed the design of perfidi- 
ously throwing the Protestants off their guard 
by professions of friendship, and then, by indis- 
criminate massacre, of obliterating from the 
kingdom every vestige of the reformed faith. 
The great mass of the people being Catholics, 
she thought that, by a simultaneous uprising all 
over the kingdom, the Protestants might be so 
generally destroyed that not enough would be 
left to cause her any serious embarrassments. 

For many reasons Catharine wished to save 
Henry from the doom impending over his friends, 



Civil Wae. 47 



A significant reply. Indications of future greatness. 

if slie could, by any means, win him to her side. 
She held many interviews with the highest ec- 
clesiastics upon the subject of the contemplated 
massacre. At one time, when she was urging 
the expediency of sparing some few Protestant 
nobles who had been her personal friends, Hen- 
ry overheard the significant reply from the Duke 
of Alva, "The head of a salmon is worth a hund- 
red frogs." The young prince meditated deep- 
ly upon the import of those words. Surmising 
then' significance, and alarmed for the safety of 
his mother, he dispatched a trusty messenger to 
communicate to her his suspicions. 

His mind was now thoroughly aroused to 
vigilance, to careful and hourly scrutiny of the 
plots and counterplots which were ever forming 
around him. While others of his age were ab- 
sorbed in the pleasures of licentiousness and 
gaming, to which that corrupt court was aban- 
doned, Henry, though he had not escaped un- 
spotted from the contamination which surround- 
ed him, displayed, by the dignity of his demean- 
or and the elevation of his character, those ex- 
traordinary qualities which so remarkably dis- 
tinguished him in future life, and which indi- 
cated, even then, that he was born to command. 
One of the grandees of the Spanish court, tlie 



48 King Henry IV. [1565. 

The prophecy. Visit of Catharine. 

Duke of Medina, after meeting him incidental- 
ly but for a few moments, remarked, 

" It appears to me that this young prince is 
either an emperor, or is destined soon to become 
one." 

Henry was very punctilious in regard to eti- 
quette, and would allow no one to treat him 
without due respect, or to deprive him of the 
position to which he was entitled by his rank. 

Jeanne d'Albret, the Queen of Navarre, was 
now considered the most illustrious leader of 
the Protestant party. Catharine, the better to 
disguise her infamous designs, went with Henry, 
in great splendor, to make a friendly visit to his 
mother in the little Protestant court of Beam. 
Catharine insidiously lavished upon Jeanne 
d'Albret the warmest congratulations and the 
most winning smiles, and omitted no courtly 
blandishments which could disarm the suspi- 
cions and win the confidence of the Protestant 
queen. The situation of Jeanne in her feeble 
dominion was extremely embarrassing. The 
Pope, in consequence of her alleged heresy, had 
issued against her the bull of excommunication, 
declaring her incapable of reigning, forbidding 
all good Catholics, by the peril of their own sal- 
vation, from obeying any of her commands. As 



1567.] Civil War. 49 

Endeavors of Catharine to influence the young prince. 

her own subjects were almost all Protestants, 
she was in no danger of any insurrection on 
their part ; but this decree, in that age of su- 
perstition and of profligacy, invited each neigh- 
boripg power to seize upon her territory. The 
only safety of the queen consisted in the mutu- 
al jealousies of the rival kingdoms of France and 
Spain, neither of them being willing that the 
other should receive such an accession to its po- 
litical importance. 

The Queen of Navarre was not at all shaken 
in her faith, or influenced to change her meas- 
ures by the visit of the French court to her cap- 
ital. She regarded, however, with much solic- 
itude, the ascendency which, it appeared to her, 
Catharine was obtaining over the mind of her 
son. Catharine caressed and flattered the young 
Prince of JSTavarre in every possible way. All 
her blandishments were exerted to obtain a 
commanding influence over his mind. She en- 
deavored unceasingly to lure him to indulgence 
in all forbidden pleasure, and especially to crowd 
upon his youthful and ardent passions all the 
temptations which yielding female beauty could 
present. After the visit of a few weeks, during 
which the little court of Navarre had witnessed 
an importation of profligacy unknown before, 

P 



50 King Henry IY. [1567. 

The return, visit. Obstacles to the departure. 

the Queen of France, with Henry and with her 
voluptuous train, returned again to Paris. 

Jeanne d'Albret had seen enough of the bland- 
ishments of vice to excite her deepest maternal 
solicitude in view of the peril of her son. She 
earnestly urged his return to Navarre; hut Cath- 
arine continually threw such chains of influence 
around him that he could not escape. At last 
Jeanne resolve'd, under the pretense of returning 
the visit of Catharine, to go herself to the court 
of France and try to recover Henry. With a 
small but illustrious retinue, embellished with 
great elegance of manners and purity of life, she 
arrived in Paris. The Queen of France received 
her with every possible mark of respect and af- 
fection, and lavished upon her entertainments, 
and fetes, and gorgeous spectacles until the 
Queen of Navarre was almost bewildered. 

Whenever Jeanne proposed to return to her 
kingdom there was some very special celebra- 
tion appointed, from which Jeanne could not, 
without extreme rudeness, break away. Thus 
again and again was Jeanne frustrated in her 
endeavors to leave Paris, until she found, to her 
surprise and chagrin, that both she and her son 
were prisoners, detained in captivity by bonds 
of the most provoking politeness. Catharine 



1567.] Civil Wae. 53 

The stratagem. Its success. 

managed so adroitly that Jeanne could not en- 
ter any complaints, for the shackles which were 
thrown around her were those of ostensibly the 
most excessive kindness and the most unbound- 
ed love. It was of no avail to provoke a quar- 
rel, for the Queen of Navarre was powerless in 
the heart of France. 

At last she resolved to effect by stratagem 
that which she could not accomplish openly. 
One day a large party had gone out upon a hunt- 
ing excursion. The Queen of Navarre made 
arrangements with her son, and a few of the 
most energetic and trustworthy gentlemen of 
her court, to separate themselves, as it were ac- 
cidentally, when in the eagerness of the chase, 
from the rest of the company, and to meet at an 
appointed place of rendezvous. The little band, 
thus assembled, turned the heads of their horses 
toward Navarre. They drove with the utmost 
speed day and night, furnishing themselves with 
fresh relays of horses, and rested not till the 
clatter of the iron hoofs of the steeds were heapd 
among the mountains of Navarre. Jeanne.-'^eft 
a very polite note upon her table in the .palace 
of St. Cloud, thanking Queen Catharine for all 
her kindness, and praying her to excuse the 
liberty she had taken in avoiding the pain of 



54 King Henry IV. [1567. 

Home again. Description of the prince. 

words of adieu. Catharine was exceedingly an- 
noyed at their escape, but, perceiving that it was 
not in her power to overtake the fugitives, she 
submitted with as good a grace as possible. 

Henry found himself thus again ambng his 
native hills. He was placed under the tuition 
of a gentleman who had a high appreciation of 
all that was poetic and beautiful. Henry, un- 
der his guidance, devoted himself with great de- 
light to the study of polite literature, and gave 
free wing to an ennobled imagination as he 
clambered up the cliffs, and wandered over the 
ravines familiar to the days of his childhood. 
His personal appearance in 1567, when he was 
thirteen years of age, is thus described by a 
Boman Catholic gentleman who was accustom- 
ed to meet him daily in the court of Catharine. 

"We have here the young Prince of Beam. 
One can not help acknowledging that he is a 
beautiful creature. At the age of thirteen he 
displays all the qualities of a person of eighteen 
or nineteen. He is agreeable, he is civil, he is 
obliging. Others might say that as yet he does 
not know what he is ; but, for my part, I, who 
study him very often, can assure you that he 
does know perfectly well. He demeans him- 
self toward all the world with so easy a carriage, 



1567.] Civil Wae. "" 55 

Evil effects of dissolute society. 

that people crowd round wherever he is ; and 
he acts so nobly in every thing, that one sees 
clearly that he is a great prince. He enters into 
conversation as a highly-polished man. He 
speaks always to the purpose, and it is remark- 
ed that he is very well informed. I shall hate 
the reformed religion all my life for having car- 
ried off from us so worthy a person. Without 
this original sin, he would be the first after the 
king, and we should see him, in a short time, at 
the head of the armies. He gains new friends 
every day. He insinuates himself into all 
hearts with inconceivable skill. He is highly 
honored by the men, and no less beloved by the 
ladies. His face is very well formed, the nose 
neither too large nor too small. His eyes are 
very soft ; his skin brown, but very smooth ; 
and his whole features animated with such un- 
common vivacity, that, if he does not make prog- 
ress with the fair, it will be very extraordinary." 
Henry had not escaped the natural influence 
of the dissolute society in the midst of which he 
had been educated, and manifested, on his first 
return to his mother, a strong passion for balls 
and masquerades, and all the enervating pleas- 
ures of fashionable life. His courtly and per- 
suasive manners were so insinuating, that, with- 



56 King Henry IV. [1567. 

Influence of Jeanne d'Albret. Catharine's deity. 

out difficulty, he borrowed any sums of money 
he pleased, and with these borrowed treasures 
he fed his passion for excitement at the gaming- 
table. 

The firm principles and high intellectual ele- 
vation of his mother roused her to the immedi- 
ate and vigorous endeavor to correct all these 
radical defects in his character and education. 
She kept him, as much as possible, under her 
own eye. She appointed teachers of the high- 
est mental and moral attainments to instruct 
him. By her conversation and example she im- 
pressed upon his mind the sentiment that it was 
the most distinguished honor of one born to 
command others to be their superior in intelli- 
gence, judgment, and self-control. The Prince 
of Navarre, in his mother's court at Beam, found 
himself surrounded by Protestant friends and 
influences, and he could not but feel and admit 
the superior dignity and purity of these his new 
friends. 

Catharine worshiped no deity but ambition. 
She was ready to adopt any measures and to 
plunge into any crimes which would give sta- 
bility and lustre to her power. She had no re- 
ligious opinions or even preferences. She es- 
poused the cause of the Catholics because, on 



1567.] Civil War. 57 

Principle of Jeanne d'Albret. 

the whole, she deemed that party the more pow- 
erful ; and then she sought the entire destruc- 
tion of the Protestants, that none might be left 
to dispute her sway. Had the Protestants been 
in the majority, she would, with equal zeal, have 
given them the aid of her strong arm, and unre- 
lentingly would have striven to crush the whole 
papal power. 

Jeanne d'Albret, on the contrary, was inprin- 
ciple a Protestant. She was a woman of re- 
flection, of feeling, of highly-cultivated intellect, 
and probably of sincere piety. She had read, 
with deep interest, the religious controversies of 
the day. She had prayed for light and guid- 
ance. She had finally and cordially adopted 
the Protestant faith as the truth of God. Thus 
guided by her sense of duty, she was exceed- 
ingly anxious that her son should be a Protest- 
ant — a Protestant Christian. In most solemn 
prayer she dedicated him to God's service, to 
defend the faith of the Reformers. In the dark- 
ness of that day, the bloody and cruel sword 
was almost universally recognized as the great 
champion of truth. Both parties appeared to 
think that the thunders of artillery and musket- 
ry must accompany the persuasive influence of 
eloquence. If it were deemed important that 



58 King Henry IV. [1567. 

The cannon the missionary. Devastation. 

one hand should guide the pen of controversy, 
to establish the truth, it was considered no 
less important that the other should wield the 
sword to extirpate heresy. Military heroism 
was thought as essential as scholarship for the 
defense of the faith. 

A truly liberal mind will find its indignation, 
in view of the atrocities of these religious wars, 
mitigated by comparison in view of the igno- 
rance and the frailty of man. The Protestants 
often needlessly exasperated the Catholics by 
demolishing, in the hour of victory, their church- 
es, their paintings, and their statues, and by 
pouring contempt upon all that was most hal- 
lowed in the Catholic heart. There was, how- 
ever, this marked difference between the two 
parties : the leaders of the Protestants, as a 
general rule, did every thing in their power to 
check the fury of their less enlightened follow- 
ers. The leaders of the Catholics, as a general 
rule, did every thing in their power to stimulate 
the fanaticism of the frenzied populace. In the 
first religious war the Protestant soldiers broke 
open and plundered the great church of Orleans. 
The Prince of Conde and Admiral Coligni has- 
tened to repress the disorder. The prince point- 
ed a musket at a soldier who had ascended a 



1568.] Civil Wae. 59 

Indecision of the prince. Arguments pro and con. 

ladder to break an image, threatening to slioot 
him if he did not immediately desist. 

" My lord" exclaimed the fanatic Protestant, 
"wait till I have thrown down this idol, and 
then, if it please you, I will die." 

It is well for man that Omniscience presides 
at the day of judgment. *' The Lord knoweth 
our frame; he remembereth that we are dust." 

Europe was manifestly preparing for anoth- 
er dreadful religious conflict. The foreboding 
cloud blackened the skies. The young Prince 
of Navarre had not yet taken his side. Both 
Catholics and Protestants left no exertions un- 
tried to win to their cause so important an aux- 
iliary. Henry had warm friends in the court 
of Navarre and in the court of St. Cloud. He 
was bound by many ties to both Catholics and 
Protestants. Love of pleasure, of self-indul- 
gence, of power, urged him to cast in his lot 
with the Catholics. E-everence for his mother 
inclined him to adopt the weaker party, who 
were struggling for purity of morals and of faith. 
To be popular with his subjects in his own king- 
dom of Navarre, he must be a Protestant. To 
be popular in France, to whose throne he was 
already casting a wistful eye, it was necessary 
for him to be a Catholic. He vacillated between 



60 King Heney IY. [1568. 

Chances of a crown. War again, 

these views of self-interest. His conscience and 
his heart were untouched. Both parties were 
aware of the magnitude of the weight he could 
place in either scale, while each deemed it quite 
uncertain which cause he would espouse. His 
father had died contending for the Catholic faith, 
and all knew that the throne of Catholic France 
was one of the prizes which the young Prince 
of Navarre had a fair chance of obtaining. His 
mother was the most illustrious leader of the 
Protestant forces on the Continent, and the 
crown of Henry's hereditary domain could not 
repose quietly upon any brow but that of a Prot- 
estant. 

Such was the state of affairs when the clangor 
of arms again burst upon the ear of Europe. 
France was the arena of woe upon which the 
Catholics and the Protestants of England and 
of the Continent hurled themselves against each 
other. Catharine, breathing vengeance, headed 
the Catholic armies. Jeanne, calm yet inflex- 
ible, was recognized as at the head of the Prot- 
estant leaders, and was alike the idol of the 
common soldiers and of their generals. The 
two contending armies, after various marchings 
and countermarchings, met at E-ochelle. The 
whole country around, for many leagues, was il- 



1568.] Civil Wae. 61 



Arrival of the Queen of Navarre. 



luminated at night by the camp-fires of the hos- 
tile hosts. The Protestants, inferior in num- 
bers, with hymns and prayers calmly awaited 
an attack. The Catholics, divided in council, 
were fearful of hazarding a decisive engagement. 
Day after day thus passed, with occasional skir- 
mishes, when, one sunny morning, the sound of 
trumpets was heard, and the gleam of the spears 
and banners of an approaching host was seen 
on the distant hills. The joyful tidings spread 
through the ranks of the Protestants that the 
Queen of Navarre, with her son and four thou- 
sand troops, had arrived. At the head of her 
firm and almost invincible band she rode, calm 
and serene, magnificently mounted, with her 
proud boy by her side. As the queen and her 
son entered the plain, an exultant shout from 
the whole Protestant host seemed to rend the 
skies. These enthusiastic plaudits, loud, long, 
reiterated, sent dismay to the hearts of the Cath- 
olics. 

Jeanne presented her son to the Protestant 
army, and solemnly dedicated him to the de- 
fense of the Protestant faith. At the same time 
she published a declaration to the world that 
she deplored the horrors of war ; that she was 
not contending for the oppression of others, but 



62 King Henry IV. [1568, 

Education of the prince. The Prince of Cond.'. 

to secure for herself and her friends the right to 
worship God according to the teachings of the 
Bible. The young prince was placed under the 
charge of the most experienced generals, to guard 
his person from danger and to instruct him in 
military science. The Prince of Conde was his 
teacher in that terrible accomplishment in which 
both master and pupil have obtained such world- 
wide renown. 

Long files of English troops, with trumpet 
tones, and waving banners, and heavy artillery, 
were seen winding their way along the streams 
of France, hastening to the scene of conflict. 
The heavy battalions of the Pope were mar- 
shaling upon all the sunny plains of Italy, and 
the banners of the rushing squadrons glittered 
from the pinnacles of the Alps, as Europe rose 
in arms, desolating ten thousand homes with 
conflagrations, and blood, and woe. Could the 
pen record the smouldering ruins, the desolate 
hearthstones, the shrieks of mortal agony, the 
wailings of the widow, the cry of the orphan, 
which thus resulted from man's inhumanity to 
man, the heart would sicken at the recital. The 
summer passed away in marches and counter- 
marches, in assassinations, and skirmishes, and 
battles. The fields of the husbandmen were 



1568.] Civil War. 63 

Slaughter of the Protestants. The battle. 

trampled under tlie hoofs of horses. Villages 
were burned to the ground, and their wretched 
inhabitants driven out in nakedness and starv- 
ation to meet the storms of merciless winter. 
Noble ladies and refined and beautiful maidens 
fled shrieking from the pursuit of brutal and li- 
centious soldiers. Still neither party gained 
any decisive victory. The storms of winter 
came, and beat heavily, with frost and drifting 
snow, upon the worn and weary hosts. 

In three months ten thousand Protestants had 
perished. At Orleans two hundred Protestants 
were thrown into prison. The populace set the 
prison on fire, and they were all consumed. 

At length the Catholic armies, having become 
far more numerous than the Protestant, ven- 
tured upon a general engagement. They met 
upon the field of Jarnac. The battle was con- 
ducted by the Reformers with a degi'ee of fear- 
lessness bordering on desperation. The Prince 
of Conde plunged into the thickest ranks of the 
enemy with his unfarled banner bearing the 
motto, "Danger is sweet for Christ and my 
country." Just as he commenced his desperate 
charge, a kick from a wounded horse fractured 
his leg so severely that the fragments of the 
bone protruded through his boot. Pointing to 



64 King Henry IV. [1568. 

Courage of the Prince of (Jonde. The defeat. 

the mangled and helpless hmb, he said to those 
around him, "Remember the state in which 
Louis of Bourbon enters the fight for Christ 
and his country." Immediately sounding the 
charge, like a whirlwind his little band plunged 
into the midst of their foes. For a moment the 
shock was irresistible, and the assailed fell like 
grass before the scythe of the mower. Soon, 
however, the undaunted band was entirely sur- 
rounded by their powerful adversaries. The 
Prince of Conde, with but about two hundred 
and fifty men, with indomitable determination 
sustained himself against the serried ranks of 
five thousand men closing up around him on 
every side. This was the last earthly conflict 
of the Prince of Conde. With his leg broken 
and his arm nearly severed from his body, his 
horse fell dead beneath him, and the prince, del- 
uged with blood, was precipitated into the dust 
under the trampling hoofs of wounded and fran- 
tic chargers. His men still fought with des- 
peration around their wounded chieftain. Of 
twenty-five nephews who accompanied him, fif- 
teen were slain by his side. Soon all his de- 
fenders were cut down or dispersed. The 
wounded prince, an invaluable prize, was taken 
prisoner. Montesquieu, captain of the guards 



1568.] Civil Wae. 65 

Death of the Prince of Conde. Retreat of the Protestants. 

of the Duke of Anjou, came driving up, and as 
he saw the prisoner attracting much attention, 
besmeared with Hood and dirt, 

"Whom have we here?" he inquired. 

" The Prince of Conde," was the exultant re- 

" Kill him ! kill him ! " exclaimed the cap- 
tain, and he discharged a pistol at his head. 

The ball passed through his brain, and the 
prince fell lifeless upon the ground. The corpse 
was left where it fell, and the Catholic troops 
pursued their foes, now flying in every direc- 
tion. The Protestants retreated across a river, 
blew up the bridge, and protected themselves 
from farther assault. The next day the Duke 
of Anjou, the younger brother of Charles IX., 
and who afterward became Henry III., who was 
one of the leaders of the Catholic army, rode 
over the field of battle, to find, if possible, the 
body of his illustrious enemy. 

" We had not rode far," says one who accom- 
panied him, " when we perceived a great num- 
ber of the dead bodies piled up in a heap, which 
led us to judge that this was the spot where the 
body of the prince was to be found : in fact, we 
found it there. Baron de Magnac took the 
corpse by the hair to lift up the face, which was 

E 



66 King Henry IV. [1568, 

Fiendish barbarity. Advice ef the Pope. 

turned toward the ground, and asked me if I 
recognized him ; but, as one eye was torn out, 
and his face was covered with blood and dirt, I 
could only reply that it was certainly his height 
and his complexion, but farther I could not say." 

They washed the bloody and mangled face, 
and found that it was indeed the prince. His 
body was carried, with infamous ribaldry, on an 
ass to the castle of Jarnac, and thrown contempt- 
uously upon the ground. Several illustrious 
prisoners were brought to the spot and butcher- 
ed in cold blood, and their corpses thrown upon 
that of the prince, while the soldiers passed a 
night of drunkenness and revelry, exulting over 
the remains of their dead enemies. 

Such was the terrible battle of Jarnae, the 
first conflict which Henry witnessed. The tid- 
ings of this great victory and of the death of 
the illustrious Conde excited transports of joy 
among the Catholics. Charles IX. sent to Pope 
Pius V. the standards taken from the Protest- 
ants. The Pope, who affirmed that Luther was 
a ravenous beast, and that his doctrines were 
the sum of all crimes, wrote to the king a letter 
of congratulation. He urged him to extirpate 
every fibre of heresy, regardless of all entreaty, 
and of every tie of blood and affection. To en- 



1568.] Civil Wae. 6^ 

Incitement to massacre. The protectorate. 

courage him, lie cited the example of Saul ex- 
terminating the Amalekites, and assured him 
that all tendency to clemency was a snare of 
the devil. 

The Catholics now considered the condition 
of the Protestants as desperate. The pulpits 
resounded with imprecations and anathemas. 
The Catholic priests earnestly advocated the 
sentiment that no faith was to be kept with her- 
etics ; that to massacre them was an action es- 
sential to the safety of the state, and which would 
secure the approbation of God. 

But the Protestants, though defeated, were 
still unsubdued. The noble Admiral Coligni 
still remained to them ; and after the disaster, 
Jeanne d'AlBret presented herself before the 
troops, holding her son Henry, then fourteen 
years of age, by one hand, and Henry, son of 
the Prince de Conde, by the other, and devoted 
them both to the cause. The young Henry of 
Navarre was then proclaimed generalisswio of 
the army and protector of the churches. He 
took the following oath : "I swear to defend 
the Protestant religion, and to persevere in the 
common cause, till death or till victory has se- 
cured for all the liberty which we desire." 



6S King Henry IV. [1568. 

Emotions of Henry. His military pagacity. 



Chapter III. 
The Marriage. 

YOUNG Henry of Navarre was but about 
fourteen years of age when, from one of the 
hills in the vicinity, he looked upon the terrible 
battle of Jarnac. It is reported that, young as 
he was, he pointed out the fatal errors which 
were committed by the Protestants in all the 
arrangements which preceded the battle. 

"It is folly," he said, " to think of lighting, 
with forces so divided, a united army making 
an attack at one point." 

For the security of his person, deemed so pre- 
cious to the Protestants, his friends, notwith- 
standing his entreaties and even tears, would 
not allow him to expose himself to any of the 
perils of the conflict. As he stood upon an em- 
inence which overlooked the field of battle, sur- 
rounded by a few faithful guards, he gazed with 
intense anguish upon the sanguinary scene 
spread out before him. He saw his friends ut- 
terly defeated, and their squadrons trampled in 
the dust beneath the hoofs of the Catholic cav- 
alry. 



1568.] The Marriage. 69 



Enthusiasm inspired by Jeanne. 



The Protestants, without loss of time, rallied 
anew their forces. The Queen of Navarre soon 
saw thousands of strong arms and brave hearts 
collecting again around her banner. Accompa- 
nied by her son, she rode through their ranks, 
and addressed them in words of feminine yet 
heroic eloquence, which roused their utmost en- 
thusiasm. But few instances have been record- 
ed in which human hearts have been more deep- 
ly moved than were these martial hosts by the 
brief sentences which dropped from the lips of 
this extraordinary woman. Henry, in the most 
solemn manner, pledged himself to consecrate 
all his energies to the defense of the Protestant 
religion. To each of the chiefs of the army the 
queen also presented a gold medal, suspended 
from a golden chain, with her own name and 
that of her son impressed upon one side, and on 
the other the words " Certain peace, complete 
victory, or honorable death." The enthusiasm 
of the army was raised to the highest pitch, and 
the heroic queen became the object almost of 
the adoration of her soldiers. 

Catharine, seeing the wonderful enthusiasm 
with which the Protestant troops were inspired 
by the presence of the Queen of Navarre, visit- 
ed the head-quarters of her own array, hoping 



70 King Henry IV. [1569. 

The failure of Catharine. The second defeat. 

that she might also enkindle similar ardor. Ac- 
companied by a magnificent retinue of her brill- 
iantly-accoutred generals, she swept, like a gor- 
geous vision, before her troops. She lavished 
presents upon her officers, and in high-sounding 
phrase harangued the soldiers ; but there was 
not a private in the ranks who did not know 
that she was a wicked and a polluted woman. 
She had talent, but no soul. All her efforts 
were unavailing to evoke one single electric 
spark of emotion. She had sense enough to 
perceive her signal failure and to feel its morti- 
fication. 'No one either loved or respected Cath- 
arine. Thousands hated her, yet, conscious of 
her power, either courting her smiles or dread- 
ing her frown, they often bowed before her in 
adulation. 

The two armies were soon facing each other 
upon the field of battle. It was the third of 
October, 1569. More than fifty thousand com- 
batants met upon the plains of Moncontour. 
All generalship seemed to be ignored as the ex- 
asperated adversaries rushed upon each other in 
a headlong fight. The Protestants, outnum- 
bered, were awfully defeated. Out of twenty- 
five thousand combatants whom they led into 
the field, but eight thousand could be rallied 



1569.] The Maheiage. 71 

The wounded friends. . The reserve force. 

around their retreating banner after a fight of 
but three quarters of an hour. All their can- 
non, baggage, and munitions of war were lost. 
]^o mercy was granted to the vanquished. 

Coligni, at the verj commencement of the 
battle, was struck by a bullet- which shattered 
his jaw. The gushing blood under his helmet 
choked him, and they bore him upon a litter 
from the field. As they were carrying the 
wounded admiral along, they overtook another 
litter upon which was stretched L'Estrange, the 
bosom friend of the admiral, also desperately 
wounded. L'Estrange, forgetting himself, gazed 
for a moment with tearful eyes upon the noble 
Coligni, and then gently said, "It is sweet to 
trust in God." Coligni, unable to speak, could 
only look a reply. Thus the two wounded 
friends parted. Coligni afterward remarked 
that these few words were a cordial to his spir- 
it, inspiring him with resolution and hope. 

Henry of Navarre, and his cousin, Henry of 
Conde, son of the prince who fell at the battle 
of Jarnac, from a neighboring eminence witness- 
ed this scene of defeat and of awful carnage. 
The admiral, unwilling to expose to danger lives 
so precious to their cause, had stationed them 
there with a reserve of four thousand men un- 



72 King Henky IV. [1569. 

Misfortunes of Coligni. His letter. 

der the command of Louis of Nassau. When 
Henry saw the Protestants giving way, he im- 
plored Louis that they should hasten with the 
reserve to the protection of their friends ; but 
Louis, with military rigor, awaited the com- 
mands of the admiral. " We lose our advant- 
age, then," exclaimed the prince, "and conse- 
quently the battle." 

The most awful of earthly calamities seemed 
now to fall like an avalanche upon Coligni, the 
noble Huguenot chieftain. His beloved broth- 
er was slain. Bands of wretches had burned 
down his castle and laid waste his estates. The 
Parliament of Paris, composed of zealous Cath- 
olics, had declared him guilty of high treason, 
and offered fifty thousand crowns to whoever 
would deliver him up, dead or alive. The Pope 
declared to all Europe that he was a " detesta- 
ble, infamous, execrable man, if, indeed, he even 
merited the name of man." His army was de- 
feated, his friends cut to pieces, and he himself 
was grievously wounded, and was lying upon a 
couch in great anguish. Under these circum- 
stances, thirteen days after receiving his wound, 
he thus wrote to his children : 

"We should not repose on earthly posses- 
sions. Let us place our hope beyond the earth, 



1569.] The Maeriage. 73 

The third army. The tide of victory changed. 

and acquire other treasures than those which we 
see with our eyes and touch with our hands. 
We must follow Jesus our leader, who has gone 
before us. Men have ravished us of what they 
could. If such is the will of God, we shall be 
happy and our condition good, since we endure 
this loss from no wrong you have done those 
who have brought it to you, but solely for the 
hate they have borne me because God was 
pleased to direct me to assist his Church. For 
the present, it is enough to admonish and con- 
jure you, in the name of God, to persevere cour- 
ageously in the study of virtue." 

In the course of a few weeks Coligni rose 
from his bed, and the Catholics were amazed to 
find him at the head of a third army. The in- 
domitable Queen of Navarre, with the calm en- 
ergy which ever signalized her character, had 
rallied the fugitives around her, and had reani- 
mated their waning courage by her own invinci- 
ble spirit. Nobles and peasants from all the 
mountains of Beam, and from every province in 
France, thronged to the Protestant camp. Con- 
flict after conflict ensued. The tide of victory 
now turned in favor of the Reformers. Henry, 
absolutely refusing any longer to retire from the 
perils of the field, engaged with the utmost cool- 



74 King Henry IV. [1570. 

The treaty of St. Germaine-en-Laye. 

ness, judgment, and yet impetuosity in all the 
toils and dangers of the battle. The Protest- 
ant cause gained strength. The Catholics were 
disheartened. Even Catharine became con- 
vinced that the extermination of the Protest- 
ants by force was no longer possible. So once 
more they offered conditions of peace, which 
were promptly accepted. These terms, which 
were signed at St. Germaine-en-Laye the 8th 
of August, 1570, were more favorable than the 
preceding. The Protestants were allowed lib- 
erty of worship in all the places then in their 
possession. They were also allowed public wor- 
ship in two towns in each province of the king- 
dom. They were permitted to reside any where 
without molestation, and were declared eligible 
to any public office. 

Coligni, mourning over the untold evils and 
miseries of war, with alacrity accepted these con- 
ditions. " Sooner than fall back into these dis- 
turbances," said he, " I would choose to die a 
thousand deaths, and be dragged through the 
streets of Paris." 

The queen, however, and her advisers were 
guilty of the most extreme perfidy in this truce. 
It was merely their object to induce the foreign 
troops who had come to the aid of the allies to 



1570.J The Maeeiage. 75 

Perfidy of Catharine. The court at Eochelle. 

leave the kingdom, that they might then ex- 
terminate the Protestants by a general massa- 
cre. Catharine decided to accomplish by the 
dagger of the assassin that which she had in 
vain attempted to accomplish on the field of bat- 
tle. This peace was but the first act in the 
awful tragedy of St. Bartholomew. 

Peace being thus apparently restored, the 
young Prince of Navarre now returned to his 
hereditary domains and visited its various prov- 
inces, where he was received with the most live- 
ly demonstrations of affection. Various circum- 
stances, however, indicated to the Protestant 
leaders that some mysterious and treacherous 
plot was forming for their destruction. The 
Protestant gentlemen absented themselves, con- 
sequently, from the court of Charles IX. The 
king and his mother were mortified by these ev- 
idences that their perfidy was suspected. 

Jeanne, with her son, after visiting her sub- 
jects in all parts of her own dominions, went to 
Eochelle, where they were joined by many of 
the most illustrious of their friends. Large 
numbers gathered around them, and the court 
of the Queen of Navarre was virtually transfer- 
red to that place. Thus there were two rival 
courts, side by side, in the same kingdom, Cath- 



76 KiNa Henry IV. [1570. 



The two courts. Marriage of Elizabeth. 

arine, with her courtiers, exhibited boundless 
luxury and voluptuousness at Paris. Jeanne 
d'Albret, at Rochelle, embellished her court with 
all that was noble in intellect, elegant in man- 
ners, and pure in morals. Catharine and her 
submissive son Charles IX. left nothing untried 
to lure the Protestants into a false security. 
Jeanne scrupulously requited the courtesies she 
received from Catharine, though she regarded 
with much suspicion the adulation and the syco- 
phancy of her proud hostess. 

The young King of France, Charles IX., who 
was of about the same age with Henry, and who 
had been his companion and playmate in child- 
hood, was now married to Elizabeth, the daugh- 
ter of the Emperor Maximilian II. of Austria. 
Their nuptials were celebrated with all the os- 
tentatious pomp which the luxury of the times 
and the opulence of the French monarchy could 
furnish. In these rejoicings the courts of France 
and Navarre participated with the semblance of 
the most heartfelt cordiality. Protestants and 
Catholics, pretending to forget that they had 
recently encountered each other with fiendlike 
fury in fields of blood, mingled gayly in these 
festivities, and vied with each other in the ex- 
change of courtly greetings and polished flatter- 



1571.] The Maeriage. 77 

The Princess Marguerite. Effects of the connection. 

ies. Catharine and Charles IX. lavished, with 
the utmost profusion, their commendations and 
attentions upon the young Prince of Navarre, 
and left no arts of dissimulation unessayed 
which might disarm the fears and win the con- 
fidence of their victims. 

The queen mother, with caressing fondness, 
declared that Henry must be her son. She 
would confer upon him Marguerite, her youngest 
daughter. This princess had now become a 
young lady, beautiful in the extreme, and high- 
ly accomplished in all those graces which can 
kindle the fires and feed the flames of passion ; 
but she was also as devoid of principle as any 
male libertine who contaminated by his pres- 
ence a court whose very atmosphere was cor- 
ruption. Many persons of royal blood had most 
earnestly sought the hand of this princess, for 
an alliance with the royal family of France was 
an honor which the proudest sovereigns might 
covet. Such a connection, in its political as- 
pects, was every thing Henry could desire. It 
would vastly augment the consideration and the 
power of the young prince, and would bring him 
. a long step nearer to the throne of France. The 
Protestants were all intensely interested in this 
match, as it would invest one, destined soon to 



78 King Heney IV. [1571. 

A royal match. Repugnance of Jeanne d'Albret. 

become their most prominent leader, with new 
ability to defend their rights and to advocate 
their cause. It is a singular illustration of the 
hopeless corruption of the times, that the noto- 
rious profligacy of Marguerite seems to have 
been considered, even by Henry himself, as no 
obstacle to the union. 

A royal marriage is ordinarily but a matter 
of state policy. Upon the cold and icy emi- 
nence of kingly life the flowers of sympathy and 
aflfection rarely bloom. Henry, without hesita- 
tion, acquiesced in the expediency of this nup- 
tial alliance. He regarded it as manifestly a 
very politic partnership, and did not concern 
himself in the least about the agreeable or dis- 
agreeable qualities of his contemplated spouse. 
He had no idea of making her his companion, 
much less his friend. She was to be merely 
his wife. 

Jeanne d'Albret, however, a woman of sincere 
piety, and in whose bosom all noble thoughts 
were nurtured, cherished many misgivings. Her 
Protestant principles caused her to shrink from 
the espousals of her son with a Eoman Catho- 
lic. Her religious scruples, and the spotless 
purity of her character, aroused the most lively 
emotions of repugnance in view of her son's 



1571.] The Marriage. 79 

Objections overcome. Perjury of Charles IX. 

connection with one who had not even the mod- 
esty to conceal her vices. State considerations, 
however, finally prevailed, and Jeanne, waving 
her objections, consented to the marriage. She 
yielded, however, with the greatest reluctance, 
to the unceasing importunities of her friends. 
They urged that this marriage would unite the 
two parties in a solid peace, and thus protect 
the Protestants from persecution, and rescue 
France from unutterable woe. Even the Ad- 
miral Coligni was deceived. But the result 
proved, in this case as in every other, that it is 
never safe to do evil that good 'inay come. If 
any fact is established under the government of 
God, it is this. 

The Queen of Navarre, in her extreme re- 
pugnance to this match, remarked, 

" I would choose to descend to the condition 
of the poorest damsel in France rather than sac- 
rifice to the grandeur of my family my own soul 
and that of my son." 

With consummate perjury, Charles IX. de- 
clared, " I give my sister in marriage, not only 
to the Prince of Navarre, but, as it were, to the 
whole Protestant party. This will be the stron- 
gest and closest bond for the maintenance of 
peace between my subjects, and a sure evidence 
of my good- will toward the Protestants." 



80 King Henry IV. [1571. 

Displays of friendship. Indifference of Marguerite. 

Thus influenced, this noble woman consent- 
ed to the union. She then went to Blois to 
meet Catharine and the king. They received 
her with exuberant displays of love. The fool- 
ish king quite overacted his part, calling her 
"his great aunt, his all, his best beloved." As 
the Queen of Navarre retired for the night, 
Charles said to Catharine, laughing, 

"Well, mother, what do you think of it? 
Do I play my little part well ?" 

" Yes," said Catharine, encouragingly, " very 
well ; but it is of no use unless it continues." 

"Allow me to go on," said the king, "and 
you will see that I shall ensnare them." 

The young Princess Marguerite, heartless, 
proud, and petulant, received the cold addresses 
of Henry with still more chilling indifference. 
She refused to make even the slightest conces- 
sions to his religious views, and, though she 
made no objection to the decidedly politic part- 
nership, she very ostentatiously displayed her 
utter disregard for Henry and his friends. The 
haughty and dissolute beauty was piqued by 
the reluctance which Jeanne had manifested to 
an alliance which Marguerite thought should 
have been regarded as the very highest of all 
earthly honors. Preparations were, however, 



1571.] The Marriage. 81 

Preparations for the -wedding. Death of Jeanne. 

made for the marriage ceremony, which was to 
be performed in the French capital with unex- 
ampled splendor. The most distinguished gen- 
tlemen of the Protestant party, nobles, states- 
men, warriors, from all parts of the realm, were 
invited to the metropolis, to add lustre to the 
festivities by their presence. Many, however, 
of the wisest counselors of the Queen of Na- 
varre, deeply impressed with the conviction of 
the utter perfidy of Catharine, and apprehend- 
ing some deep-laid plot, remonstrated against 
the acceptance of the invitations, presaging that, 
"if the wedding were celebrated in Paris, the 
liveries would be very crimson." 

Jeanne, solicited by the most pressing letters 
from Catharine and her son Charles IX., and 
urged by her courtiers, who were eager to share 
the renowned pleasures of the French metropo- 
lis, proceeded to Paris. She had hardly enter- 
ed the sumptuous lodgings provided for her in 
the court of Catharine, when she was seized 
with a violent fever, which raged in her veins 
nine days, and then she died. In death she 
manifested the same faith and fortitude which 
had embellished her life. Not a murmur or a 
groan escaped her lips in the most violent par- 
oxysms of pain. She had no desire to live ex- 



i: 



82 King Henky IV. [1572. 

Demonstrations of grief. Different reports. 

cept from maternal solicitude for her children, 
Henry and Catharine. 

"But God," said she, "will be their father 
and protector, as he has been mine in my great- 
est afflictions. I confide them to his provi- 
dence." 

She died in June, 1572, in the forty-fourth 
year of her age. Catharine exhibited the most 
ostentatious and extravagant demonstrations of 
grief. Charles gave utterance to loud and 
poignant lamentations, and ordered a surgeon to 
examine the body, that the cause of her death 
might be ascertained. Notwithstanding these 
efforts to allay suspicion, the report spread like 
wildfire through all the departments of France, 
and all the Protestant countries of Europe, that 
the queen had been perfidiously poisoned by 
Catharine. The Protestant writers of the time 
assert that she fell a victim to poison communi- 
cated by a pair of perfumed gloves. The Cath- 
olics as confidently affirm that she died of a 
natural disease. The truth can now never be 
known till the secrets of all hearts shall be re- 
vealed at the judgment day. 

Henry, with his retinue, was slowly travel- 
ing toward Paris, unconscious of his mother's 
sickness, when the unexpected tidings arrived 



1572.] The Maeriage. 83 

The King of Navarre. Indifference. 

of her death. It is difficult to imagine what 
must have been the precise nature of the emo- 
tions of an ambitious young man in such an 
event, who ardently loved both his mother and 
the crown which she wore, as by the loss of the 
one he gained the other. The cloud of his grief 
was embellished with the gilded edgings of joy. 
The Prince of Beam now assumed the title and 
the style of the King of Navarre, and honored 
the memory of his noble mother with every man- 
ifestation of regret and veneration. This mel- 
ancholy event caused the postponement of the 
marriage ceremony for a short time, as it was 
not deemed decorous that epithalamiums should 
be shouted and requiems chanted from the 
same lips in the same hour. The knell tolling 
the burial of the dead would not blend harmo- 
niously with the joyous peals of the marriage 
bell. Henry was not at all annoyed by this de- 
lay, for no impatient ardor urged him to his 
nuptials. Marguerite, annoyed by the opposi- 
tion which Henry's mother had expressed in 
regard to the alliance, and vexed by the utter 
indifference which her betrothed manifested to- 
ward her person, indulged in all the wayward 
humors of a worse than spoiled child. She stu- 
diously displayed her utter disregard for Hen- 



84 King Henry IV. [1572. 

Coligni lured to Paris. He is remonstrated with. 

ry, which manifestations, with the most provok- 
ins: indifference, he did not seem even to notice. 

During this short interval the Protestant no- 
bles continued to flock to Paris, that they might 
honor with their presence the marriage of the 
young chief. The Admiral Coligni was, by 
very special exertions on the part of Catharine 
and Charles, lured to the metropolis. He had 
received anonymous letters warning him of his 
danger. Many of his more prudent friends 
openly remonstrated against his placing himself 
in the power of the perfidious queen. Coligni, 
however, was strongly attached to Henry, and, 
in defiance of all these warnings, he resolved to 
attend his nuptials. " I confide," said he, " in 
the sacred word of his majesty." 

Upon his arrival in the metropolis, Catharine 
and Charles lavished upon him the most un- 
bounded manifestations of regard. The king, 
embracing the admiral, exclaimed, " This is the 
happiest day of my life." Very soon one of 
the admiral's friends called upon him to take 
leave, saying that he was immediately about to 
retire into the country. When asked by the 
admiral the cause of his unexpected departure, 
he replied, "I go because they caress you too 
much, and I would rather save myself with fools 
than perish with sages." 



1572.] The Maeeiage. 85 

The nuptial day. The scene. 



At length the nuptial day arrived. It was 
the seventeenth of August, 1572. Paris had laid 
aside its mourning weeds, and a gay and brill- 
iant carnival succeeded its dismal days of 
gloom. Protestants and Catholics, of highest 
name and note, from every part of Europe, who 
had met in the dreadful- encounters of a hund- 
red fields of Wood, now mingled in apparent 
fraternity with the glittering throng, all inter- 
changing smiles and congratulations. The un- 
impassioned bridegroom led his scornful bride 
to the church of Notre Dame. Before the mass- 
ive portals of this renowned edifice, and under 
the shadow of its venerable towers, a magnifi- 
cent platform had been reared, canopied with 
the most gorgeous tapestry. Hundreds of 
thousands thronged the surrounding amphithe- 
atre, swarming at the windows, crowding the 
balconies, and clustered upon the house-tops, to 
witness the imposing ceremony. The gentle 
breeze breathing over the multitude was laden 
with the perfume of flowers. Banners, and pen- 
nants, and ribbons of every varied hue waved 
in the air, or hung in gay festoons from window 
to window, and from roof to roof. Upon that 
conspicuous platform, in the presence of all the 
highest nobility of France, and of the most il- 



86 King Henry IV. [1572. 



Small favors gratefully received. 



lustrious representatives of every court of Eu- 
rope, Henry received the hand of the haughty 
princess, and the nuptial oath was administered. 
Marguerite, however, even in that hour, and 
in the presence of all those spectators, gave a 
ludicrous exhibition of her girlish petulance and 
ungoverned willfulness. When, in the progress 
of the ceremony, she was asked if she willingly 
received Henry of Bourbon for her husband, she 
pouted, coquettishly tossed her proud head, and 
was silent. The question was repeated. The 
spirit of Marguerite was now roused, and all the 
powers of Europe could not tame the shrew. 
She fixed her eyes defiantly upon the officia- 
ting bishop, and refusing, by look, or word, or 
gesture, to express the slightest assent, remain- 
ed as immovable as a statue. Embarrassment 
and delay ensued. Her royal brother, Charles 
IX., fully aware of his sister's indomitable res- 
olution, coolly walked up to the termagant at 
bay, and placing one hand upon her chest and 
the other upon the back of her head, compelled 
an involuntary nod. The bishop smiled and 
bowed, and acting upon the principle that small 
favors were gratefully received, proceeded with 
the ceremony. Such were the vows with which 
Henry and Marguerite were united. Such is 
too often love in the palace. 



1572.] The Marriage. 89 

Mass. National festivities. 

The Itoman Catholic wife, unaccompanied by 
her Protestant husband, who waited at the door 
with his retinue, now entered the church of No- 
tre Dame to participate in the solemnities of the 
mass. The young King of Navarre then sub- 
missively received his bride and conducted her 
to a very magnificent dinner. Catharine and 
Charles IX., at this entertainment, were very 
specially attentive to the Protestant nobles. 
The weak and despicable king leaned affection- 
ately upon the arm of the Admiral Coligni, and 
for a long time conversed with him with every 
appearance of friendship and esteem. Balls, il- 
luminations, and pageants ensued in the even- 
ing. For many days these unnatural and chill- 
ing nuptials were celebrated with all the splen- 
dor of national festivities. Among these enter- 
tainments there was a tournament, singularly 
characteristic of the times, and which certainly 
sheds peculiar lustre either upon the humility 
or upon the good-nature of the Protestants. 

A large area was prepared for the display of 
one of those barbaric passes of arms in which 
the rude chivalry of that day delighted. The 
inclosure was surrounded by all the polished in- 
tellect, rank, and beauty of France. Charles 
IX., with his two brothers and several of the 



90 King Henry IV. [1572. 

The tournament. Strange representations. 

Catholic nobility, then appeared upon one side 
of the arena on noble war-horses gorgeously ca- 
parisoned, and threw down the gauntlet of de- 
fiance to Henry of Navarre and his Protestant 
retinue, who, similarly mounted and accoutred, 
awaited the challenge upon the opposite side. 

The portion of the inclosure in which the 
Catholics appeared was decorated to represent 
heaven. Birds of Paradise displayed their gor- 
geous plumage, and the air was vocal with the 
melody of trilling songsters. Beauty displayed 
its charms arrayed in celestial robes, and am- 
brosial odors lulled the senses in luxurious in- 
dulgence. All the resources of wealth and art 
were lavished to create a vision of the home of 
the blessed. 

The Protestants, in the opposite extreme of 
the arena, were seen emerging from the desola- 
tion, the gloom, and the sulphurous canopy of 
hell. The two parties, from their antagonistic 
realms, rushed to the encounter, the fiends of 
darkness battling with the angels of light. 
Gradually the Catholics, in accordance with pre- 
vious arrangements, drove back the Protestants 
toward their grim abodes, when suddenly nu- 
merous demons appeared rushing from the dun- 
geons of the infernal regions, who, with cloven 



1572.] The Marriage. 91 

Regal courtesy. Impediments to departure. 

hoofs, and satanic weapons, and chains forged 
in penal fires, seized upon the Protestants and 
dragged them to the blackness of darkness from 
whence they had emerged. Plaudits loud and 
long greeted this discomfiture of the Protestants 
by the infernal powers. 

But suddenly tie scene is changed. A wing- 
ed Cupid appears, the representative of the pi- 
ous and amiable bride Marguerite. The demons 
fly in dismay before the irresistible boy. Fear- 
lessly this emissary of love penetrates the realms 
of despair. The Protestants, by this agency, 
are liberated from their thralldom, and conduct- 
ed in triumph to the Elysium of the Catholics. 
A more curious display of regal courtesy histo- 
ry has not recorded. And this was in Paris ! 

Immediately after the marriage, the Admiral 
Coligni was anxious to obtain permission to 
leave the city. His devout spirit found no en- 
joyment in the gayeties of the metropolis, and 
he was deeply disgusted with the unveiled li- 
centiousness which he witnessed every where 
around him. Day after day, however, impedi- 
ments were placed in the way of his departure, 
and it was not until three days after the mar- 
riage festivities that he succeeded in obtaining 
an audience with Charles. He accompanied 



92 King Henry IV. [1572. 



Mission from the Pope. The reply. 



Charles to the racket-court, where the young 
monarch was accustomed to spend much of his 
time, and there bidding him adieu, left him to 
his amusements, and took his way on foot to- 
ward his lodgings. 

The Pope, not aware of the treachery which 
was contemplated, was much displeased in view 
of the apparently friendly relations which had 
thus suddenly sprung up between the Catholics 
and the Protestants. He was exceedingly per- 
plexed by the marriage, and at last sent a legate 
to expostulate with the French king. Charles 
IX. was exceedingly embarrassed how to frame 
a reply. He wished to convince the legate of 
his entire devotion to the Papal Church, and, 
at the same time, he did not dare to betray his 
intentions ; for the detection of the conspiracy 
would not only frustrate all his plans, but would 
load him with ignominy, and vastly augment 
the power of his enemies. 

"I do devoutly wish," Charles replied, "that 
I could tell you all ; but you and the Pope 
shall soon know how beneficial this marriage 
shall prove to the interests of religion. Take 
my word for it, in a little time the holy father 
shall have reason to praise my designs, my pi- 
ety, and my zeal in behalf of the faith." 



1572.] Peeparations. 93 

The attempted assassination of Coligni. Escape of the assassin. 



Chapter IV. 
Preparations for Massacre. 

AS the Admiral Coligni was quietly passing 
through the streets from his interview 
with Charles at the Louvre to his residence, in 
preparation for his departure, accompanied by 
twelve or fifteen of his personal friends, a letter 
was placed in his hands. He opened it, and 
began to read as he walked slowly along. Just 
as he was turning a corner of the street, a mus- 
ket was discharged from the window of an ad- 
joining house, and two balls struck him. One 
cut off a finger of his right hand, and the other 
entered his left arm. The admiral, inured to 
scenes of danger, manifested not the slightest 
agitation or alarm. He calmly pointed out to 
his friends the house from which the gun had 
been discharged, and his attendants rushed for^ 
ward and broke open the door. The assassin, 
however, escaped through a back window, and, 
mounting a fleet horse stationed there, and 
which was subsequently proved to have belong- 
ed to a nephew of the king, avoided arrest. It 



94 King Henry IV. [1572. 

Christian f^ulnnission of ColiLTiii. Arrival of Henry. 

was clearly proved in the investigations wliicli 
immediately ensued tliat the assassin was in 
connivance with some of the most prominent 
Catholics of the realm. The Duke of Guise 
and Catharine were clearly implicated. 

^Messengers were immediately dispatched to 
inform the kin^' of the crime which had been 
perpetrated. Charles was still playing in the 
tennis-court. Casting away his racket, he ex- 
claimed, with every appearance of indignation, 
'* Shall I never he at peace"?*' 

The wounded admiral was conveyed to his 
lodirino's. The sur^'cons of the coiu't, the min- 
isters of the Pi'otestant Church, and the most 
illustrious princes and nobles of the admind's 
party hastened to the couch of the sutlerer. 
Henry of Navarre was one of the first that ar- 
rived, and he was deeply moved as he bent over 
his revered and much-loved iriend. The intrep- 
id and noble old man seemed perfectly calm and 
composed, reposing untailing trust in God. 

'* My friends," said he, " why do you weep "? 
For myself, I deem it an honor to have received 
these wounds for the name of God. Pray him 
to strengtlien me." 

Hemy proceeded from the bedside of the ad- 
miral to the Louvre. He found Charles and 



1572.J Preparations. 95 

Indignation of Ilonry. Artitico of Oatharino and Charles. 

Catharine there, surrounded by many of the no- 
bles of their court. In indignant terms Henry 
reproached both niotlier and son with the atroc- 
ity of the crime which had been connnitted, and 
demanded immediate permission to retire from 
Paris, assertimr that neither he nor his friends 
coukl any longer remain in the capital in safe- 
ty. The king and his mother vied with each 
other in noisy, voluble, and even blasphemous 
declarations of their utter abhorrence of the 
deed ; but all the oaths of Charles and all the 
vociferations of Catharine did but strengthen 
the conviction of the Protestants that they both 
were implicated in this plot of assassination. 
Catliarine and Charles, feigning the deepest in- 
terest in the fate of their wounded guest, hasten- 
ed to his sick-chamber witli every possible as- 
surance of their distress and sympathy. Charles 
expressed the utmost indignation at the nuir- 
derous attempt, and declared, with those oaths 
which are conimon to vulgar minds, that he 
would take the most terrible vengeance npon 
the perpetrators as soon as he could discover 
them. 

"To discover them can not be difficult," cool- 
ly replied the admiral. 

Henry of Navarre, overwhelmed with indig- 



96 King Henry IV. [1572. 



Perplexity of the Protestants. Secret preparations. / 

nation and sorrow, was greatly alarmed in view 
of the toils in whicti lie found himself and his 
friends hopelessly involved. The Protestants, 
who had been thus lured to Paris, unarmed and 
helpless, were panic-stricken by these indica- 
tions of relentless perfidy. They immediately 
made preparations to escape from the city. Hen- 
ry, bewildered by rumors of plots and perils, 
hesitated whether to retire from the capital with 
his friends in a body, taking the admiral with 
them, or more secretly to endeavor to effect an 
escape. 

But Catharine and Charles, the moment for 
action having not quite arrived, were unwearied 
in their exertions to allay this excitement and 
soothe these alarms. They became renewedly 
clamorous in their expressions of grief and in- 
dignation in view of the assault upon the ad- 
miral. The king placed a strong guard around 
the house where the wounded nobleman lay, os- 
tensibly for the purpose of protecting him from 
any popular outbreak, but in reality, as it sub- 
sequently appeared, to guard against his escape 
through the intervention of his friends. He 
also, with consummate perfidy, urged the Prot- 
estants in the city to occupy quarters near to- 
gether, that, in case of trouble, they might more 



1572.J Preparations. 97 

Feeble condition of the Protestants. 

easily be protected by him, and might more ef- 
fectually aid one another. His real object, how- 
ever, was to assemble them in more convenient 
proximity for the slaughter to which they were 
doomed. The Protestants were in the deepest 
perplexity. They were not sure but that all 
their apprehensions were groundless ; and yet 
they knew not but that in the next hour some 
fearful battery would be unmasked for their de- 
struction. They were unarmed, unorganized, 
and unable to make any preparation to meet an 
unknown danger. Catharine, whose depraved 
yet imperious spirit was guiding with such con- 
summate duplicity all this enginery of intrigue, 
hourly administered the stimulus of her own 
stern will to sustain the faltering purpose of her 
equally depraved but fickle-minded and imbe- 
cile son. 

Some circumstances seem to indicate that 
Charles was not an accomplice with his mother 
in the attempt upon the life of the admiral. She , 
said to her son, "Notwithstanding all your prot- 
estations, the deed will certainly be laid to your 
charge. Civil war will again be enkindled. The 
chiefs of the Protestants are now all in Paris. 
You had better gain the victory at once here 
than incur the hazard of a new campaign." 

G 



98 


King Heney I 


:v. Xi.57-2. 


The visit. 




The secret council. 



' ' Well, then, " said Charles, petulantly, ' ' since 
you approve the murder of the admiral, I am 
content. But let all the Huguenots also fall, 
that there may not be one left to reproach me." 

It was on Friday, the 22d of August, that the 
bullets of the assassin wounded Coligni. The 
next day Henry called again, with his bride, to 
visit his friend, whose finger had been amputated, 
and who was suffering extreme pain from the 
wound in his arm. Marguerite had but few 
sympathies with the scenes which are to be wit- 
nessed in the chamber of sickness. She did 
not conceal her impatience, but, after a few com- 
monplace phrases of condolence with her hus- 
band's bosom friend, she hastened away, leaving 
Henry to perform alone the offices of friendly 
sympathy. 

While the young King of Navarre was .th'us 
sitting at the bedside of the admiral, recouhting 
to him the assurances of faith and honor ^iven 
by Catharine and her son, the question was then 
under discussion, in secret council, at the pal- 
ace, by this very Catharine and Charles, wheth- 
er Henry, the husband of the daughter of the 
one and of the sister of the other, should be in- 
cluded with the rest of the Protestants in the 
massacre which they were plotting. Charles 



1572.] Peepaeations.* 99 

Preparations to arm the citizens, 

manifested some reluctance thus treacherously 
to take the life of his early playmate and friend, 
his brother-in-law, and his invited guest. It 
was, after much deliberation, decided to protect 
him from the general slaughter to which his 
friends were destined. 

The king sent for some of the leading officers 
of his troops, and commanded them immediate- 
ly, but secretly, to send his agents through ev- 
ery section of the city, to arm the Roman Cath- 
olic citizens, and assemble them, at midnight, 
in front of the Hotel de Ville. 

The energetic Duke of Guise, who had ac- 
quired much notoriety by the sanguinary spirit 
with which he had persecuted the Protestants, 
was to take the lead of the carnage. To pre- 
vent mistakes in the confusion of the night, he 
had issued secret orders for all the Catholics 
" to wear a white cross on the hat, and to bind 
a piece of white cloth around the arm." In the 
darkest hour of the night, when all the senti- 
nels of vigilance and all the powers of resist- 
ance should be most effectually disarmed by 
sleep, the alarm-bell, from the tower of the Pal- 
ace of Justice, was to toll the signal for the in- 
discriminate massacre of the Protestants. The 
bullet and the dagger were to be every where 

Lorc 



100 King Heney IV. [1572. 

Directions for the massacre. Signals. 

employed, and men, women, and children were 
to be cut down without mercy. With a very 
few individual exceptions, none were to be left 
to avenge the deed. Large bodies of troops, 
who hated the Protestants with that implacable 
bitterness which the most sanguinary wars of 
many years had engendered, had been called 
into the city, and they, familiar with deeds of 
blood, were to commence the slaughter. All 
good citizens were enjoined, as they loved their 
Savior, to aid in the extermination of the ene- 
mies of the Church of Rome. Thus, it was 
declared, God would be glorified and the best 
interests of man promoted. The spirit of the 
age was in harmony with the act, and it can 
not be doubted that there were those who had 
been so instructed by their spiritual guides that 
they truly believed that by this sacrifice they 
were doing God service. 

The conspiracy extended throughout all the 
provinces of France. The storm was to burst, 
at the same moment, upon the unsuspecting vic- 
tims in every city and village of the kingdom. 
Beacon-fires, with their lurid midnight glare, 
were to flash the tidings from mountain to 
mountain. The peal of alarm was to ring along 
from steeple to steeple, from city to hamlet, from 



1572.] Preparations. 101 

Feast at the Louvre. Embarrassment of Henry. 

valley to hillside, till the whole Catholic popu- 
lation should be aroused to obliterate every ves- 
tige of Protestantism from the land. 

While Catharine and Charles were arranging 
all the details of this deed of infamy, even to 
the very last moment they maintained with the 
Protestants the appearance of the most cordial 
friendship. They lavished caresses upon the 
Protestant generals and nobles. The very day 
preceding the night when the massacre com- 
menced, the king entertained, at a sumptuous 
feast in the Louvre, many of the most illustri- 
ous of the doomed guests. Many of the Prot- 
estant nobles were that night, by the most press- 
ing invitations, detained in the palace to sleep. 
Charles appeared in a glow of amiable spirits, 
and amused them, till a late hour, with his pleas- 
antries. 

Henry of ]^avarre, however, had his suspi- 
cions very strongly aroused. Though he did 
not and could not imagine any thing so dread- 
ful as a general massacre, he clearly foresaw 
that preparations were making for some very 
extraordinary event. The entire depravity of 
both Catharine and Charles he fully understood. 
But he knew not where the blow would fall, and 
he was extremely perplexed in deciding as to 



102 King Henry IV. [1572. 

The Duke of Lorraiuo. His hatred tOAvani the Protestants. 

the course lie ouglit to pursue. The apartments 
assigned to him and his bride were m the pal- 
ace of the Louvre. It would be so manifestly 
for his worldly interest for him to unite with 
the Catholic party, especially when he should 
see the Protestant cause hopelessly ruined, that 
the mother and the brother of his wife had hes- 
itatingly concluded that it would be safe to spare 
his life. Many of the most conspicuous mem- 
bers of the court of Navarre lodged also in the 
capacious palace, in chambers contiguous to 
those which were occupied by their sovereign. 
Maro'uerite's oldest sister had married the 
Duke of Lorraine, and her son, the Duke of 
Guise, an energetic, ambitious, unprincipled 
profligate, was one of the most active agents m 
this conspiracy. His illustrious rank, his near 
relationship with the king — rendering it not im- 
probable that he might yet inherit the throne — 
his restless activity, and his implacable hatred 
of the Protestants, gave him the most promi- 
nent position as tlie leader of the Catholic par- 
ty. He had often encountered the x\dmu*al Co- 
ligni upon fields of battle, where all the malig- 
nity of the human heart had been aroused, and 
he had often been compelled to fly before the 
strong arm of his powerful adversary. He felt 



1572.] Preparations. 103 

The assassin's revenge. Anxiety of the Duchess of Lorraine. 

that now the hour of revenge had come, and 
with an assassin's despicable heart he thirsted 
for the blood of his noble foe. It was one of 
his paid agents who fired upon the admiral from 
the window, and, mounted upon one of the fleet- 
est chargers of the Duke of Guise, the wretch 
made his escape. 

The conspiracy had been kept a profound se- 
cret from Marguerite, lest she should divulge it 
to her husband. The Duchess of Lorraine, 
however, was in all their deliberations, and, fully 
aware of the dreadful carnage which the night 
was to witness, she began to feel, as the hour of 
midnight approached, very considerable anxiety 
in reference to the safety of her sister. Con- 
scious guilt magnified her fears ; and she was 
apprehensive lest the Protestants, when they 
should first awake to the treachery which sur- 
rounded them, would rush to the chamber of 
their king to protect him, and would wreak their 
vengeance upon his Catholic spouse. She did 
not dare to communicate to her sister the cause 
of her alarm ; and yet, when Marguerite, about 
11 o'clock, arose to retire, she importuned her 
sister, even with tears, not to occupy the same 
apartment with her husband that night, but to 
sleep in her own private chamber. Catharine 



104 King Henry IV. [1572. 

Scene in Hemy's chamber. Rumorff of trouble. 

sharply reproved the Duchess of Lorraine for 
her imprudent remonstrances, and bidding the 
Queen of Navarre good-night, with maternal au- 
thority directed her to repair to the room of her 
husband. She departed to the nuptial cham- 
ber, wondering what could be the cause of such 
an unwonted display of sisterly solicitude and 
affection. 

When she entered her room, to her great sur- 
prise she found thirty or forty gentlemen as- 
sembled there. They were the friends and the 
supporters of Henry, who had become alarmed 
by the mysterious rumors which were floating 
from ear to ear, and by the signs of agitation, 
and secrecy, and strange preparation which ev- 
ery where met the eye. No one could imagine 
what danger was impending. No one knew 
from what quarter the storm would burst. But 
that some very extraordinary event was about 
to transpire was evident to all. It was too late 
to adopt any precautions for safety. The Prot- 
estants, unarmed, unorganized, and widely dis- 
persed, could now only practice the virtue; of 
heroic fortitude in meeting their doom, whatever 
that doom might be. The gentlemen in Hen- 
ry's chamber did not venture to separate, and 
not an eye was closed in sleep. They sat to- 



1572.] PHEf AEATIONS. 105 

Assembling for work. Alarm in the metropolis. 

gether in the deepest perplexity and consterna- 
tion, as the hours of the night lingered slow- 
ly along, anxiously awaiting the developments 
with which the moments seemed to be fraught. 
In the mean time, aided by the gloom of a 
starless night, in every street of Paris prepara- 
tions were going on for the enormous perpetra- 
tion. Soldiers were assembling in different 
places of rendezvous. Guards were stationed 
at important points in the city, that, their vic- 
tims might not escape. Armed citizens, with 
loaded muskets and sabres gleaming in the lamp- 
light, began to emerge, through the darkness, 
from their dwellings, and to gather, in motley 
and interminable assemblage, around the Hotel 
de Yille. A regiment of guards were stationed 
at the gates of the royal palace to protect Charles 
and Catharine from any possibility of danger. 
Many of the houses were illuminated, that by 
the light blazing from the windows, the bullet 
might be thrown with precision, and that the 
dagger might strike an unerring blow. Agita- 
tion and alarm pervaded the vast metropolis. 
The Catholics were rejoicing that the hour of 
vengeance had. arrived. The Protestants gazed 
upon the portentous gatherings of this storm in 
utter bewilderment. 



106 King Henry IV. [1572. 

Inflexibility of Catharine. The faltering of Charles. 

All the arrangements of the enterprise were 
left to the Duke of Guise, and a more efficient 
and fitting agent could not have been found. 
He had ordered that the tocsin, the signal for 
the massacre, should be tolled at two o'clock in 
the morning. Catharine and Charles, in one- of 
the apartments of the palace of the Louvre, were 
impatiently awaiting the lingering flight of the 
hours till the alarm-bell should toll forth th6 
death-warrant of their Protestant subjects. 
Catharine, inured to treachery and hardened in 
vice, was apparently a stranger to all compunc- 
tious visitings. A life of crime had steeled her 
soul against every merciful impression. But 
she was very apprehensive lest her son, less ob- 
durate in purpose, might relent. Though im- 
potent in character, he was, at times, petulant 
and self-willed, and in paroxysms of stubborn- 
ness spurned his mother's counsels and exert- 
ed his own despotic power. 

Charles was now in a state of the most fever- 
ish excitement. He hastily paced the room, 
peering out at the window, and almost every 
moment looking at his watch, wishing that the 
hour would come, and again half regretting that 
the plot had been formed. The companions 
and the friends of his childhood, the in\nted 



1572.] Preparations. 107 

Nerved for the work. The knell of death. 

guests who, for many weeks, had been his asso- 
ciates in gay festivities, and in the interchange 
of all kindly words and deeds, were, at his com- 
mand, before the morning should dawn, to fall 
before the bullet and the poniard of the midnight 
murderer. His mother witnessed with intense 
anxiety this wavering of his mind. She there- 
fore urged him no longer to delay, but to antic- 
ipate the hour, and to send a servant immedi- 
ately to sound the alarm. 

Charles hesitated, while a cold sweat ran from 
his forehead. ''Are you a coward ?" taunting- 
ly inquired the fiend-like mother. This is the 
charge which will always make the poltroon 
squirm. The young king nervously exclaimed, 
"Well, then, begin." 

There were in the chamber at the time only 
the king, his mother, and his brother the Duke 
of Anjou. A messenger was immediately dis- 
patched to strike the bell. It was two hours 
after midnight. A few moments of terrible sus- 
pense ensued. There was a dead silence, nei- 
ther of the three uttering a word. They all 
stood at the windows looking out into the ray- 
less night. Suddenly, through the still air, the 
ponderous tones of the alarm-bell fell upon the 
ear, and rolled, the knell of death, over the city. 



108 King Henry IV. [1572. 



"Vive Dieu et le roi 1" 



Its vibrations awakened the demon in ten thou- 
sand hearts. It was the morning of the Sab- 
bath, August 24th, 1572. It was the anniver- 
sary of a festival in honor of St. Bartholomew, 
which had long been celebrated. At the sound 
of the tocsin, the signal for the massacre, armed 
men rushed from every door into the streets, 
shouting, " Vive Dieu et le roi ^—Live God 
and the king ! 



1572.] The Massacke. 109 

The commencement of the massacre. 



Chaptee v. 
Massacre of St. Bartholomew. 

AS the solemn dirge from the steeple rang 
out upon the night air, the king stood at 
the window of the palace trembling in every 
nerve. Hardly had the first tones of the alarm- 
bell fallen upon his ear when the report of a 
musket was heard, and the first victim fell. 
The sound seemed to animate to fi:enzy the de- 
moniac Catharine, while it almost froze the blood 
in the veins of the young monarch, and he pas- 
sionately called out for the massacre to be stop- 
ped. It was too late. The train was fired, and 
could not be extinguished. The signal passed 
with the rapidity of sound from steeple to stee- 
ple, till not only Paris, but entire France, was 
roused. The roar of human passion, the crack- 
ling fire of musketry, and the shrieks of the 
wounded and the dying, rose and blended in one 
fearful din throughout the whole metropolis. 
Guns, pistols, daggers, were every where busy. 
Old men, terrified maidens, helpless infants, ven- 
erable matrons, were alike smitten, and mercy 



110 King Henry IV. [1572. 

The house forced. Flight of the servants. 

had no appeal which could touch the heart of 
the murderers. 

The wounded Admiral Coligni was lying help- 
less upon his bed, surrounded by a few person- 
al friends, as the uproar of the rising storm of 
human violence and rage rolled in upon their 
ears. The Duke of Guise, with three hundred 
soldiers, hastened to the lodgings of the admiral. 
The gates were immediately knocked down, and 
the sentinels stabbed. A servant, greatly ter- 
rified, rushed into the inner apartment where 
the wounded admiral was lying, and exclaimed, 

" The house is forced, and there is no means 
of resisting. " 

" I have long since," said the admiral, calm- 
ly, "prepared myself to die. Save yourselves, 
my friends, if you can, for you can not defend 
my life. I commend my soul to the mercy of 
God." 

The companions of the admiral, having no 
possible means of protection, and perhaps add- 
ing to his peril by their presence, immediately 
iled to other apartments of the house. They 
were pursued and stabbed. Three leaped from 
the windows and were shot in the streets. 

Coligni, left alone in his apartment, rose with 
difficulty from his bed, and, being unable to 



1572.] The Massacre. Ill 



Death of Admiral Coligni. 



stand, leaned for support against the wall. A 
desperado by the name of Breme, a follower of 
the Duke of Guise, with a congenial band of 
accomplices, rushed into the room. They saw a 
venerable man, pale, and with bandaged wounds, 
in his night-dress, engaged in prayer. 

"Art thou the admiral?" demanded the as- 
sassin, with brandished sword. 

"I am," replied the admiral; "and thou, 
young man, shouldst respect my gray hairs. 
Nevertheless, thou canst abridge my life but a 
little." 

Breme plunged his sword into his bosom, and 
then withdrawing it, gave him a cut upon the 
head. The admiral fell, calmly saying, "If I 
could but die by the hand of a gentleman in- 
stead of such a knave as this I" The rest of the 
assassins then rushed upon him, piercing his 
body with their daggers. 

The Duke of Guise, ashamed himself to meet 
the eye of this noble victim to the basest treach- 
ery, remained impatiently in the court -yard 
below.. 

"Breme!" he shouted, looking up at the win- 
dow, " have you done it ?" 
, "Yes," Breme exclaimed from the chamber, 
""he is done for." 



112 King Heney IV. [1572. 

Brutality. Fate of the Duke of Guise. 

"Let us see, though," rejoined the duke. 
" Throw the body from the window." 

The mangled corpse was immediately thrown 
down upon the pavement of the court-yard. 
The duke, with his handkerchief, wiped the 
blood and the dirt from his face, and carefully 
scrutinized the features. 

"Yes," said he, "I recognize him. He is 
the man." 

Then giving the pallid cheek a kick, he ex- 
claimed, " Courage, comrades ! we have happily 
begun. Let us now go for others. The king- 
commands it." 

In sixteen years from this event the Duke of 
Guise was himself assassinated, and received a 
kick in the face from Henry III., brother of the 
same king in whose service he had drawn the 
dagger of the murderer. Thus died the Admi- 
ral Coligni, one of the noblest sons of France. 
Though but fifty-six years of age, he was pre- 
maturely infirm from care, and toil, and suf- 
fering. 

For three days the body was exposed to the 
insults of the populace, and finally was hung up 
by the feet on a gibbet. A cousin of Coligni 
secretly caused it to be taken down and buried. 

The tiger, having once lapped his tongue in 



1572.J The Massacre. 113 

Excitement of the PariBians. Fiendifih spirit of Charles. 

blood, seems to be imbued with a new spirit of 
ferocity. There is in man a similar temper, 
which is roased and stimulated by carnage. 
The excitement of human slaughter converts 
man into a demon. The riotous multitude of 
Parisians was becoming each moment more and 
more clamorous for blood. They broke open 
the houses of the Protestants, and, rushing into 
their chambers, murdered indiscriminately both 
sexes and every age. The streets resounded 
with the shouts of the assassins and the shrieks 
of their victims. Cries of " Kill I kill I more 
blood I " rent the air. The bodies of the slain 
were thrown out of the windows into the streets, 
and the pavements of the city were clotted with 
human gore. 

Charles, Avho was overwhelmed with such 
compunctions of conscience when he heard the 
first shot, and beheld from his window the com- 
mencement of the butchery, soon recovered from 
his momentary wavering, and, conscious that it 
was too late to draw back, with fiend-like eager- 
ness engaged himself in the work of death. The 
monarch, w^hen a boy, had been noted for his 
sanguinary spirit, delighting with his own hand 
to perform the revolting acts of the slaughter- 
house. Perfect fury seemed now to take pos- 

H 



114 King Henet IV. [1572. 

y 

Fugitives butchered. Terror of Marguerite. 

session of him. His cheeks were flushed, his 
lips compressed, his eyes glared with frenzy. 
Bending eagerly from his window, he shouted 
words of encouragement to the assassins. Grasp- 
ing a gun, in the handling of which he had be- 
come very skillful from long practice in the 
chase, he watched, like a sportsman, for his prey; 
and when he saw an unfortunate Protestant, 
wounded and bleeding, flying from his pursuers, 
he would take deliberate aim from the window 
of his palace, and shout with exultation as he 
saw him fall, pierced by his bullet. A crowd 
of fugitives rushed into the court-yard of the 
Louvre to throw themselves upon the protection 
of the king. Charles sent his own body-guard 
into the yard, with guns and daggers, to butcher 
them all, and the pavements of the palace-yard 
were drenched with their blood. 

Just before the carnage commenced. Marguer- 
ite, weary with excitement and the agitating 
conversation to which she had so long been lis- 
tening, retired to her private apartment for sleep. 
She had hardly closed her eyes when the fear- 
ful outcries of the pursuers and the pursued fill- 
ed the palace. She sprang up in her bed, and 
heard some one struggling at the door, and 
shrieking "Navarre! Navarre I" In a parox- 



1572.] The Massacee. 117 

Flight of Marguerite. Terrors of the night. 

ysm of terror, she ordered an attendant to open 
the door. One of her husband's retinue in- 
stantly rushed in, covered with wounds and 
blood, pursued by four soldiers of her brother's 
guard. The captain of the guard entered at the 
same moment, and, at the earnest entreaty of 
the princess, spared her the anguish of seeing 
the friend of her husband murdered before her 
eyes. 

Marguerite, half delirious with bewilderment 
and terror, fied from her room to seek the apart- 
ment of her sister. The palace was filled with 
uproar, the shouts of the assassins and the 
shrieks of their victims blending in awful con- 
fusion. As she was rushing through the hall, 
she encountered another Protestant gentleman 
flying before the dripping sword of his pursuer. 
He was covered with blood, flowing from the 
many wounds he had already received. Just 
as he reached the young Queen of Navarre, his 
pursuer overtook him and plunged a sword 
through his body. He fell dead at her feet. 

No tongue can tell the horrors of that night. 
It would require volumes to record the frightful 
scenes which were enacted before the morning 
dawned. Among the most remarkable escapes 
we may mention that of a lad whose name aft- 



118 King Henry IV. [1572. 



Eemarkable escape of Maximilian. 



erward attained much celebrity. The Baron de 
B/Osny, a Protestant lord of great influence and 
worth, had accompanied his son Maximilian, a 
very intelligent and spirited boy, about eleven 
years of age, to Paris, to attend the nuptials of 
the King of Navarre. This young prince, Max- 
imilian, afterward the world-renowned Duke of 
Sully, had previously been prosecuting his stud- 
ies in the College of Burgundy, in the metropo- 
lis, and had become a very great favorite of the 
warm-hearted King of Navarre. His father had 
come to Paris with great reluctance, for he had 
no confidence in the protestations of Catharine 
and Charles IX. Immediately after the attempt 
was made to assassinate the admiral, the Baron 
de Rosny, with many of his friends, left the city, 
intrusting his son to the care of a private tutor 
and a valet de chambre. He occupied lodgings 
in a remote quarter of the city and near the col- 
leges. 

Young Maximilian was asleep in his room, 
when, a little after midnight, he was aroused by 
the ringing of the alarm-bells, and the confused 
cries of the populace. His tutor and valet de 
chambre sprang from their beds, and hurried out 
to ascertain the cause of the tumult. They did 
not, however, return, for they had hardly reach- 



1572.] The Massacre. 119 

Efforts to save his life. The disguise. 

ed the door when thej were shot down. Max- 
imilian, in great bewilderment respecting their 
continued absence, and the dreadful clamor con- 
tinually increasing, was hurriedly dressing him- 
self, when his landlord came in, pale and trem- 
bling, and informed him of the massacre which 
was going on, and that he had saved his own 
life only by the avowal of his faith in the Cath- 
olic religion. He earnestly urged Maximilian 
to do the same. The young prince magnani- 
mously resolved not to save his life by false- 
hood and apostasy. He determined to attempt, 
in the darkness and confusion of the night, to 
gain the College of Burgundy, where he hoped 
to find some Catholic friends who would protect 
him. 

The distance of the college from the house in 
which he was rendered the undertaking desper- 
ately perilous. Having disguised himself in 
the dress of a Roman Catholic priest, he took a 
large prayer-book under his arm, and trembling- 
ly issued forth into the streets. The sights 
which met his eye in the gloom of that awful 
night were enough to appal the stoutest heart. 
The murderers, frantic with excitement and in- 
toxication, were uttering wild outcries, and pur- 
suing, in every direction, their terrified victims. 



120 King Henry IV. [1572. 



Scene in the street. 



Women and children, in their night-clothes, hav- 
ing just sprung in terror from their beds, were 
flying from their pursuers, covered with wounds, 
and uttering fearful shrieks. The mangled bod- 
ies of the young and of the old, of males and 
females, were strewn along the streets, and the 
pavements were slippery with blood. Loud and 
dreadful outcries were heard from the interior 
of the dwellings as the work of midnight assas- 
sination proceeded ; and struggles of desperate 
violence were witnessed, as the murderers at- 
tempted to throw their bleeding and dying vic- 
tims from the high windows ^of chambers and 
attics upon the pavements below. The shouts 
of the assailants, the shrieks of the wounded, as 
blow after blow fell upon them, the incessant 
reports of muskets and pistols, the tramp of sol- 
diers, and the peals of the alarm-bell, all com- 
bined to create a scene of terror such as human 
eyes have seldom witnessed. In the midst of 
ten thousand perils, the young man crept along, 
protected by his priestly garb, while he frequent- 
ly saw his fellow-Christians shot and stabbed 
at his very side. 

Suddenly, in turning a corner, he fell into the 
midst of a band of the body-guard of the king, 
whose swords were dripping with blood. They 



1572.] 


The Massacre. 121 


The talisman. 


Arrival at the college. 



seized him with great roughness, when, seeing 
the Catholic prayer-book which was in his 
hands, they considered it a safe passport, and 
permitted him to continue on his way uninjured. 
Twice again he encountered similar peril, as he 
was seized by bands of infuriated men, and each 
time he was extricated in the same way. 

At length he arrived at the College of Bur- 
gundy ; and now his danger increased tenfold. 
It was a Catholic college. The porter at the 
gate absolutely refused him admittance. The 
murderers began to multiply in the street around 
him with fierce and threatening questions. Max- 
imilian at length, by inquiring for La Faye, the 
president of the college, and by placing a bribe 
in the hands of the porter, succeeded in obtain- 
ing entrance. La Faye was a humane man, 
and exceedingly attached to his Protestant pu- 
pil. Maximilian entered the apartment of the 
president, and found there two Catholic priests. 
The priests, as soon as they saw him, insisted 
upon cutting him down, declaring that the king 
had commanded that not even the infant at the 
breast should be spared. The good old man, 
however, firmly resolved to protect his young 
friend, and, conducting him privately to a secure 
chamber, locked him up. Here he remained 



122 King Henry IV. [1572. 

His protection. Henry taken before the king. 

three days in the greatest suspense, apprehen- 
sive every hour that the assassins would break 
in upon him. A faithful servant of the presi- 
dent brought him food, but could tell him of 
nothing but deeds of treachery and blood. At 
the end of three days, the heroic boy, who af- 
terward attained great celebrity as the minis- 
ter and bosom friend of Henry, was released 
and protected. 

The morning of St. Bartholomew's day had 
not dawned when a band of soldiers entered the 
chamber of Henry of Navarre and conveyed him 
to the presence of the king. Frenzied with the 
excitements of the scene, the imbecile but pas- 
sionate monarch received him with a counte- 
nance inflamed with fury. With blasphemous 
oaths and imprecations, he commanded the King 
of Navarre, as he valued his life, to abandon a 
religion which Charles affirmed that the Prot- 
estants had assumed only as a cloak for their 
rebellion. With violent gesticulations and 
threats, he declared that he would no longer 
submit to be contradicted by his subjects, but 
that they should revere him as the image of 
God. Henry, who was a Protestant from con- 
siderations of state policy rather than from 
Christian principle, and who saw in the conflict 



1572.] The Massacee. 123 

He yields. Paris on the Sabbath following. 

merely a strife between two political parties, 
ingloriously yielded to that necessity by whicli 
alone he could save his life. Charles gave him 
three days to deliberate, declaring, with a vio- 
lent oath, that if, at the end of that time, he did 
not yield to his commands, he would cause him 
to be strangled. Henry yielded. He not only 
went to mass himself, but submitted to the deg- 
radation of sending an edict to his own domin- 
ions, prohibiting the exercise of any religion ex- 
cept that of Rome. This indecision was a se- 
rious blot upon his character. Energetic and 
decisive as he was in all his measures of gov- 
ernment, his religious convictions were ever fee- 
ble and wavering. 

When the darkness of night passed away and 
the morning of the Sabbath dawned upon Par- 
is, a spectacle was witnessed such as the streets 
even of that blood-renowned metropolis have 
seldom presented. The city still resounded 
with that most awful of all tumults, the clamor 
of an infuriated mob. The pavements were 
covered with gory corpses. Men, women, and 
children were still flying in every direction, 
wounded and bleeding, pursued by merciless 
assassins, riotous with demoniac laughter and 
drunk with blood. The report of guns and pis- 



124 Kino Henry IV. [1572. 

Encouragement by the priests. The massacre continued. 

tols was heard in all parts of the city, sometimes 
in continuous volleys, as if platoons of soldiers 
were firing upon their victims, while the scat- 
tered shots, incessantly repeated in every sec- 
tion of the extended metropolis, proved the uni- 
versality of the massacre. Drunken wretches, 
besmeared with blood, were swaggering along 
the streets, with ribald jests and demoniac 
bowlings, hunting for the Protestants. Bodies, 
torn and gory, were hanging from the windows, 
and dissevered heads were spurned like footballs 
along the pavements. Priests were seen in 
their sacerdotal robes, with elevated crucifixes, 
and with fanatical exclamations encouraging 
the murderers not to grow weary in their holy 
work of exterminating God's enemies. The 
most distinguished nobles and generals of the 
court and the camp of Charles, mounted on 
horseback with gorgeous retinue, rode through 
the streets, encouraging by voice and arm the 
indiscriminate massacre. 

" Let not," the king proclaimed, " one single 
Protestant be spared to reproach me hereafter 
with this deed." 

For a whole week the massacre continued, 
and it was computed that from eighty to a hund- 
red thousand Protestants were slain throughout 
the kingdom. 



1572.] The Massacre. 125 

Exultation of the Catholics. Triumphal proceBsion. 

Charles himself, with Catharine and the high- 
born but profligate ladies who disgraced her 
court, emerged with the morning light, in splen- 
did array, into the reeking streets. The ladies 
contemplated with merriment and ribald jests 
the dead bodies of the Protestants piled up be- 
fore the Louvre. Some of the retinue, appalled 
by the horrid spectacle, wished to retire, alleg- 
ing that the bodies already emitted a putrid 
odor. Charles inhumanly replied, " The smell 
of a dead enemy is always pleasant." 

On Thursday, after four days spent in hunt- 
ing out the fugitives and finishing the bloody 
work, the clergy paraded the streets in a tri- 
umphal procession, and with jubilant prayers 
and hymns gave thanks to God for their great 
victory. The Catholic pulpits resounded with 
exultant harangues, and in honor of the event 
a medallion was struck off, with the inscription 
*'^Z>a piete a reveille la justice'^ — Religion has 
avmkened justice. 

In the distant provinces of France the mas- 
sacre was continued, as the Protestants were 
hunted from all their hiding-places. In some 
departments, as in Santonge and Lower Lan- 
guedoc, the Protestants were so numerous that 
the Catholics did not venture to attack them. 



126 King Henry IV. [1572. 

Extent of the massacre. 

In some other provinces they were so few that 
the Catholics had nothing whatever to fear from 
them, and therefore spared them ; and in the 
sparsely-settled rural districts the peasants re- 
fused to imbrue their hands in the blood of 
their neighbors. Many thousand Protestants 
throughout the kingdom in these ways escaped. 
But in nearly all the populous towns, where 
the Catholic population predominated, the mas- 
sacre was universal and indiscriminate. In 
Meaux, four hundred houses of Protestants were 
pillaged and devastated, and the inmates, with- 
out regard to age or sex, utterly exterminated. 
At Orleans there were three thousand Protest- 
ants. A troop of armed horsemen rode furi- 
ously through the streets, shouting, " Courage, 
boys ! kill all, and then you shall divide their 
property." At Rouen, many of the Protestants, 
at the first alarm, fled. The rest were arrested 
and thrown into prison. They were then brought 
out one by one, and deliberately murdered. Six 
hundred were thus slain. Such were the scenes 
which were enacted in Toulouse, Bordeaux, 
Bourges, Angers, Lyons, and scores of other cit- 
ies in France. It is impossible to ascertain with 
precision the number of victims. The Duke of 
Sully estimates them at seventy thousand ; the 



1572.] The Massacee. 127 



Magnanimity of Catholic officers. 



Bishop Perefixe at one hundred thousand. This 
latter estimate is probably not exaggerated, if 
we include the unhappy fugitives, who, fleeing 
from their homes, died of cold, hunger, and fa- 
tigue, and all the other nameless woes which 
accrued from this great calamity. 

In the midst of these scenes of horror it is 
pleasant to record several instances of generous 
humanity. In the barbarism of those times 
dueling was a common practice. A Catholic 
officer by the name of Yessins, one of the most 
iierce and irritable men in France, had a private 
quarrel with a Protestant officer whose name 
was Regnier. They had mutually sought each 
other in Paris to obtain such satisfaction as a 
duel could affiord. In the midst of the massa- 
cre, Regnier, while at prayers with his servant 
(for in those days dueling and praying were not 
deemed inconsistent), heard the door of his room 
broken open, and, looking round in expectation 
of instant death, saw his foe Yessins enter 
breathless with excitement and haste. Regnier, 
conscious that all resistance would be unavail- 
ing, calmly bared his bosom to his enemy, ex- 
claiming, 

"You will have an easy victory." 

Yessins made no reply, but ordered the valet 



128 King Henry IV. [1572. 



The Bishop of Lisieux. 



to seek his master's cloak and sword. Then 
leading him into the street, he mounted him 
upon a powerful horse, and with fifteen armed 
men escorted him out of the city. Not a word 
was exchanged between them. When they ar- 
rived at a little grove at a short distance from 
the residence of the Protestant gentleman, Ves- 
sins presented him with his sword, and bade 
him dismount and defend himself, saying, 

"Do not imagine that I seek your friend- 
ship by what I have done. All I wish is to 
take your life honorably." 

Regnier threw away his sword, saying, " I 
will never strike at one who has saved my life." 

" Yery well!" Vessins replied, and left him, 
making him a present of the horse on which he 
rode. 

Though the commands which the king sent 
to the various provinces of France for the mas- 
sacre were very generally obeyed, there were 
examples of distinguished virtue, in which Cath- 
olics of high rank not only refused to imbrue 
their own hands in blood, but periled their lives 
to protect the Protestants. The Bishop of 
Lisieux, in the exercise of true Christian char- 
ity, saved all the Protestants in the town over 
which he presided. The Governor of Auvergne 



1572.] The Massacee. 129 



Noble replies to the king's decree. 



replied to the secret letter of the king in the fol- 
lowing words : 

" Sire, I have received an order, under your 
majesty's seal, to put all the Protestants of this 
province to death, and if, which God forbid, the 
order be genuine, I respect your majesty still 
too much to obey you." 

The king had sent a similar order to the 
commandant at Bayonne, the Viscount of Or- 
thez. The following noble words were returned 
in reply : 

" Sire, I have communicated the commands 
of your majesty to the inhabitants of the town 
and to the soldiers of the garrison, and I have 
found good citizens and brave soldiers, hut not 
one executioner ; on which account, they and 
I humbly beseech you to employ our arms and 
our lives in enterprises in which we can con- 
scientiously engage. However perilous they 
may be, we will willingly shed therein the last 
drop of our blood. " 

Both of these noble-minded men soon after 
very suddenly and mysteriously died. Few 
entertained a doubt that poison had been ad- 
ministered by the order of Charles. 

The laio of France required that these Prot- 
estants should be hunted to death. This was 

I 



130 King Henry IV. [1572. 

The higher law. Attempted justification. 

the law promulgated by the king and sent by 
his own letters missive to the appointed officers 
of the crown. 

But there is — there is a higher law than 
that of kings and courts. Nobly these majes- 
tic men rendered to it their allegiance. They 
sealed their fidehty to this higher law with 
their blood. They were martyrs, not fanatics. 

On the third day of the massacre the king 
assembled the Parliament in Paris, and made a 
public avowal of the part he had taken in this 
fearful tragedy, and of the reasons which had in- 
fluenced him to the deed. Though he hoped to 
silence all Protestant tono-ues in his own realms 
in death, he knew that the tale would be told 
throughout all Europe. He therefore stated, in 
justification of the act, that he had, " as if by a 
miracle," discovered that the Protestants were 
engaged in a conspiracy against his own life and 
that of all of his family. 

This charge, however, uttered for the moment, 
was speedily dropped and forgotten. There was 
not the slightest evidence of such a design. 

The Parliament, to give a little semblance of 
justice to the king's accusation, sat in judgment 
upon the memory of the noble Coligni. They 
sentenced him to be hung in G&-gy ; ordered his 



1572.] The Massacre. 131 



ruuishment of Coligni. 



arms to be dragged at the lieels of a horse through 
all the principal towns of France ; his magnifi- 
cent castle of Chatillon to be razed to its founda- 
tions, and never to be rebuilt; his fertile acres, 
in the culture of which he had found his chief 
delight, to be desolated and sown with salt; his 
portraits and statues, wherever found, to be de- 
stroyed; his children to lose their title of nobil- 
ity ; all his goods and estates to be confiscated 
to the use of the crown, and a monument of du- 
rable marble to be raised, upon which this sen- 
tence of the court should be engraved, to trans- 
mit to all posterity his alleged infamy. Thus 
was punished on earth one of the noblest serv- 
ants both of God and man. But there is a day 
of final judgment yet to come. The oppressor 
has but his brief hour. There is eternity to 
right the oppressed. 

Notwithstanding this general and awful mas- 
sacre, the Protestants were far from being ex- 
terminated. Several nobles, surrounded by their 
retainers in their distant castles, suspicious of 
treachery, had refused to go to Paris to attend 
the wedding of Henry and Marguerite. Others 
who had gone to Paris, alarmed by the attack 
upon Admiral Coligni, immediately retired to 
their homes. Some concealed themselves in 



132 King Heney IV. [1572. 

Valor of the survivors. Pledges of aid. 

garrets, cellars, and wells until the massacre 
was over. As has been stated, in some towns 
the governors refused to engage in the mer- 
ciless butchery, and in others the Protestants 
had the majority, and with their own arms could 
defend themselves within the walls which their 
own troops garrisoned. 

Though, in the first panic caused by the dread- 
ful slaughter, the Protestants made no resist- 
ance, but either surrendered themselves submis- 
sively to the sword of the assassin, or sought 
safety in concealment or flight, soon indignation 
took the place of fear. Those who had fled 
from the kingdom to Protestant states rallied 
together. The survivors in France began to 
count their numbers and marshal their forces 
for self-preservation. From every part of Prot- 
estant Europe a cry of horror and execration 
simultaneously arose in view of this crime of un- 
paralleled enormity. In many places the Cath- 
olics themselves seemed appalled in contempla- 
tion of the deed they had perpetrated. Words 
of sympathy were sent to these martyrs to a 
pure faith from many of the Protestant king- 
doms, with pledges of determined and efficient 
aid. The Protestants rapidly gained courage. 
From all the country, they flocked into those 



1572.] The Massacee. 133 

Prophecy of Knox. Apology of the court. 

walled towns which still remained in their 
power. 

As the fugitives from France, emaciate, pale, 
and woe-stricken, with tattered and dusty garb, 
recited in England, Switzerland, and Germany 
the horrid story of the massacre, the hearts of 
their auditors were frozen with horror. In Ge- 
neva a day of fasting and prayer was instituted, 
which is observed even to the present day. In 
Scotland every church resounded with the thrill- 
ing tale ; and Knox, whose inflexible spirit was 
nerved for those iron times, exclaimed, in lan- 
guage of prophetic nerve, 

" Sentence has gone forth against that mur- 
derer, the King of France, and the vengeance of 
God will never be withdrawn from his house. 
His name shall be held in everlasting execra- 
tion." 

The French court, alarmed by the indignation 
it had aroused, sent an embassador to London 
with a poor apology for the crime, by pretend- 
ing that the Protestants had conspired against 
the life of the king. The embassador was re- 
ceived in the court of the queen with appalling 
coldness and gloom. Arrangements were made 
to invest the occasion with the most impressive 
solemnity. The court was shrouded in mourn- 



134 King Henry IY. [1572. 



Opinions of the courts of Elurope. 



ing, and all the lords and ladies appeared in sa- 
ble weeds. A stern and sombre sadness was 
upon every countenance. The embassador, 
overwhelmed by his reception, was overheard to 
exclaim to himself, in bitterness of heart, 

"I am ashamed to acknowledge myself a 
Frenchman." 

He entered, however, the presence of the 
queen, passed through the long line of silent 
courtiers, who refused to salute him, or even to 
honor him with a look, stammered out his mis- 
erable apology, and, receiving no response, re- 
tired covered with confusion. Elizabeth, we 
thank thee! This one noble deed atones for 
many of thy crimes. 

Very different was the reception of these tid- 
ings in the court of Rome. The messenger who 
carried the news was received with transports 
of joy, and was rewarded with a thousand pieces 
of gold. Cannons were fired, bells rung, and 
an immense procession, with all the trappings of 
sacerdotal rejoicing, paraded the streets. An- 
thems were chanted and thanksgivings were sol- 
emnly offered for the great victory over the ene- 
mies of the Church. A gold medal was struck 
off to commemorate the event ; and Charles IX. 
and Catharine were pronounced, by the infalli- 



1572.] The Massacre. 135 

Rejoicings at Rome. Atrocity of the deed. 

ble word of his holiness, to be the especial fa- 
vorites of God. Spain and the Netherlands 
united with E-ome in these infamous exulta- 
tions. Philip 11. wrote from Madrid to Cath- 
arine, 

" These tidings are the greatest and the most 
glorious I could have received." 

Such was the awful massacre of St. Barthol- 
omew. When contemplated in all its aspects 
of perfidy, cruelty, and cowardice, it must he 
pronounced the greatest crime recorded in his- 
tory. The victims were invited under the guise 
of friendship to Paris. They were received with 
solemn oaths of peace and protection. The 
leading men in the nation placed the dagger in 
the hands of an ignorant and degraded people. 
The priests, professed ministers of Jesus Christ, 
stimulated the benighted multitude by all the 
appeals of fanaticism to exterminate those whom 
they denounced as the enemies of God and man. 
After the great atrocity was perpetrated, princes 
and priests, with bloodstained hands, flocked to 
the altars of God, our common Father, to thank 
him that the massacre had been accomplished. 

The annals of the world are filled with narra- 
tives of crime and woe, but the Massacre of St. 
Bartholomew stands perhaps without a parallel. 



136 King Henry IV. 


[1572. 


Results of the massacre. 


Retribution. 



It has been said, " The blood of the martyrs 
is the seed of the Church." This is only true 
with exceptions. Protestantism in France has 
never recovered from this blow. But for. this 
massacre, one half of the nobles of France would 
have continued Protestant. The Reformers 
would have constituted so large a portion of the 
population that mutual toleration would have 
been necessary. Henry IV. would not have ab- 
jured the Protestant faith. Intelligence would 
have been diffused ; religion would have been 
respected ; and, in all probability, the horrors of 
the French Revolution would have been averted. 

God is an avenger. In the mysterious gov- 
ernment which he wields, mysterious only to our 
feeble vision, he " visits the iniquities of the fa- 
thers upon the children, even unto the third and 
fourth generation." As we see the priests of 
Paris and of France, during the awful tragedy 
of the Revolution, massacred in the prisons, shot 
in the streets, hung upon the lamp-posts, and 
driven in starvation and woe from the kingdom, 
we can not but remember the day of St. B<ir- 
tholomew. The 24th of August, 1572, and the 
2d of September, 1792, though far apart in the 
records of time, are consecutive days in the gov^ 
ernment of God. 



Valois — Guise — Bouebon. 137 

Illustrious Trench families. The house of Valois. 



Chaptee VL 

The Houses of Valois, of Guise, 
AND OF Bouebon. 

AT this time, in France, there were three illus- 
trious and rival families, prominent above 
all others. Their origin was lost in the remote- 
ness of antiquity. Their renown had been ac- 
cumulating for many generations, through rank, 
and wealth, and power, and deeds of heroic and 
semi-barbarian daring. As these three famihes 
are so blended in all the struggles of this most 
warlike period, it is important to give a brief 
history of their origin and condition. 

1. The House of Yalois, More than a thou- 
sand years before the birth of Christ, we get dim 
glimpses of France, or, as it was then called, 
Gaul. It was peopled by a barbarian race, di- 
vided into petty tribes or clans, each with its 
chieftain, and each possessing undefined and 
sometimes almost unlimited power. Age after 
age rolled on, during which generations came 
and went like ocean billows, and all Gaul was 
but a continued battle-field. The history of 



138 King Heney IV. 

Early condition of France. Clovis. 

each individual of its countless millions seems 
to have been, that he was born, killed as many 
of his fellow-creatures as he could, and then, 
having acquired thus much of glory, died. 

About fifty years before the birth of Christ, 
Ca3sar, with his conquering hosts, swept through 
the whole country, causing its rivers to run red 
with blood, until the subjugated Gauls submit- 
ted to Boman sway. In the decay of the Horn an 
empire, about four hundred years after Christ, 
the Franks, from Germany, a barbarian horde as 
ferocious as wolves, penetrated the northern por- 
tion of Gaul, and, obtaining permanent settle- 
ment there, gave the whole country the name 
of France. Clovis was the chieftain of this war- 
like tribe. In the course of a few years, France 
was threatened with another invasion by com- 
bined hordes of barbarians from the north. The 
chiefs of the several independent tribes in France 
found it necessary to unite to repel the foe. 
They chose Clovis as their leader. This was 
the origin of the French monarchy. He was 
but little elevated above the surrounding chief- 
tains, but by intrigue and power perpetuated his 
supremacy. For about three hundred years the 
family of Clovis retained its precarious and oft- 
contested elevation. At last, this line, enervated 



Valois— Guise — Bourbon. 139 

The Carlovingian dj'nasty. Capet and Philip. 

by luxury, became extinct, and another family 
obtained the throne. This new dynasty, under 
Pepin, was called the Carlovingian. The crown 
descended generally from father to son for about 
two hundred years, when the last of the race was 
poisoned by his wife. This family has been 
rendered very illustrious, both by Pepin and by 
his son, the still more widely renowned Charle- 
magne. 

Hugh Capet then succeeded in grasping the 
sceptre, and for three hundred years the Capets 
held at bay the powerful chieftains who alter- 
nately assailed and defended the throne. Thir- 
teen hundred years after Christ, the last of the 
Capets was borne to his tomb, and the feudal 
lords gave the pre-eminence to Philip of Yalois. 
For about two hundred years the house of Ya- 
lois had reigned. At the period of which we treat 
in this history, luxury and vice had brought the 
family near to extinction. 

Charles IX., who now occupied the throne 
under the rigorous rule of his infamous mother, 
was feeble in body and still more feeble in mind. 
He had no child, and there was no probability 
that he would ever be blessed with an heir. 
His exhausted constitution indicated that a pre- 
mature death was his inevitable destiny. His 



140 King Henry IV. [1592. 

Decay of the house of Valois. House of Guise. 

brother Henry, who had been elected King of 
Poland, would then succeed to the throne ; but 
he had still less of manly character than Charles. 
An early death was his unquestioned doom. At 
his death, if childless, the house of Valois would 
become extinct. Who then should grasp the 
rich prize of the sceptre of France? The house 
of Guise and the house of Bourbon were rivals 
for this honor, and were mustering their strength 
and arraying their forces for the anticipated con- 
flict. Each family could bring such vast influ- 
ences into the struggle that no one could imag- 
ine in whose favor victory would decide. Such 
was the condition of the house of Valois in 
France in the year 1592. 

2. Let us now turn to the house of Guise, 
No tale of fiction can present a more fascinat- 
ing collection of romantic enterprises and of wild 
adventures than must be recorded by the truth- 
ful historian of the house of Guise. On the 
western banks of the Rhine, between that river 
and the Meuse, there was the dukedom of Lor- 
raine. It was a state of no inconsiderable wealth 
and power, extending over a territory of about 
ten thousand sqUM'e miles, and containing a 
million and a half of inhabitants. Rene 11. , 
Duke of Lorraine, was a man of great renown, 



Valois — Guise — Bourbon. 141 

The dukedom of Lorraine. Claude of Lorraine. 

and in all the pride and pomp of feudal power 
he energetically governed his little realm. His 
body was scarred with the wounds he had re- 
ceived in innumerable battles, and he was ever 
ready to head his army of fifty thousand men, 
to punish any of the feudal lords around him 
who trespassed upon his rights. 

The wealthy old duke owned large posses- 
sions in Normandy, Picardy, and various other 
of the French provinces. He had a large fam- 
ily. His fifth son, Claude, was a proud-spirit- 
ed boy of sixteen. Rene sent this lad to France, 
and endowed him with all the fertile acres, and 
the castles, and the feudal rights which, in 
France, pertained to the noble house of Lor- 
raine. Young Claude of Lorraine was present- 
ed at the court of St. Cloud as the Count of 
Guise, a title derived from one of his domains. 
His illustrious rank, his manly beauty, his 
princely bearing, his energetic mind, and brill- 
iant talents, immediately gave him great promi- 
nence among the glittering throng of courtiers. 
Louis XII. was much delighted with the young 
count, and wished to attach the powerful and 
attractive stranger to his own house by an al- 
liance with his daughter. The heart of the 
proud boy was, however, captivated by another 



142 King Heney IV. 

Marriage of the Count of Guise. Francis I, 

beauty who embellished the court of the mon- 
arch, and, turning from the princess royal, he 
sought the hand of Antoinette, an exceedingly 
beautiful maiden of about his own age, a daugh- 
ter of the house of Bourbon. The wedding of 
this young pair was celebrated with great mag- 
nificence in Paris, in the presence of the whole 
French court. Claude was then but sixteen 
years of age. 

A few days after this event the infirm old 
king espoused the young and beautiful sister of 
Henry VIII. of England. The Count of Guise 
was honored with the commission of proceeding 
to Boulogne with several princes of the blood 
to receive the royal bride. Louis soon died, 
and his son, Francis I., ascended the throne. 
Claude was, by marriage, his cousin. He could 
bring all the influence of the proud house of 
Bourbon and the powerful house of Lorraine in 
support of the king. His own energetic, fear- 
less, war-loving spirit invested him with great 
power in those barbarous days of violence and 
blood. Francis received his young cousin into 
high favor. Claude was, indeed, a young man 
of very rare accomplishments. His prowess in 
the jousts and tournaments, then so common, 
and his grace and magnificence in the drawing- 



Valois — Guise — Bouebon. 143 

The suggestion and its results. 

room, rendered him an object of universal ad- 
miration. 

One night Claude accompanied Francis I. to 
the queen's circle. She had gathered around 
her the most brilliant beauty of her realm. In 
those days woman occupied a very inferior po- 
sition in society, and seldom made her appear- 
ance in the general assemblages of men. The 
gallant young count was fascinated with the 
amiability and charms of those distinguished la- 
dies, and suggested to the king the expediency 
of breaking over the restraints which long usage 
had imposed, and embellishing his court with 
the attractions of female society and conversa- 
tion. The king immediately adopted the wel- 
come suggestion, and decided that, throughout 
the whole realm, women should be freed from 
the unjust restraint to which they had so long 
been subject. Guise had already gained the 
good-will of the nobility and of the army, and 
he now became a universal favorite with the 
ladies, and was thus the most popular man in 
France. Francis I. was at this time making 
preparations for the invasion of Italy, and the 
Count of Guise, though but eighteen years of 
age, was appointed commander-in-chief of a di- 
vision of the army consisting of twenty thou- 
sand men. 



144 Kino Heney IV. 

Bravery of the duke. His prominence. 

In all the perils of the bloody battles which 
soon ensued, he displayed that utter reckless- 
ness of danger which had been the distinguish- 
ing trait of his ancestors. In the first battle, 
when discomfiture and flight were spreading 
through his ranks, the proud count refused to 
retire one step before his foes. He was sur- 
rounded, overmatched, his horse killed from un- 
der him, and he fell, covered with twenty-two 
wounds, in the midst of the piles of mangled 
bodies which strewed the ground. He was aft- 
erward dragged from among the dead, insensi- 
ble and apparently lifeless, and conveyed to his 
tent, where his vigorous constitution, and that 
energetic vitality which seemed to characterize 
his race, triumphed over wounds whose severity 
rendered their cure almost miraculous. 

Francis I., in his report of the battle, extolled 
in the most glowing terms the prodigies of valor 
which Guise had displayed. War, desolating 
war, still ravaged wretched Europe, and Guise, 
with his untiring energy, became so prominent 
in the court and the camp that he was regarded 
rather as an ally of the King of France than as 
his subject. His enormous fortune, his ances- 
tral renown, the vast political and military in- 
fluences which were at his command, made him 



Valois — Guise — Boukbon. 145 

Days of war. The bloody rout. 

almost equal to the monarch whom he served. 
Francis lavished honors upon him, converted 
one of his counties into a dukedom, and, as duke 
of Guise, young Claude of Lorraine had now 
attained the highest position which a subject 
could occupy. 

Years of conflagration, carnage, and woe roll- 
ed over war-deluged Europe, during which all 
the energies of the human race seemed to be 
expended in destruction ; and in almost every 
scene of smouldering cities, of ravaged valleys, 
of battle-fields rendered hideous with the shouts 
of onset and shrieks of despair, we see the ap- 
parition of the stalwart frame of Guise, scarred, 
and war-worn, and blackened with the smoke 
and dust of the fray, riding upon his proud 
charger, wherever peril was most imminent, as 
if his body were made of iron. 

At one time he drove before him, in most 
bloody rout, a numerous army of Germans. 
The fugitives, spreading over leagues of coun- 
try, fled by his own strong castle of Neufcha- 
teau. Aiitoinette and the ladies of her court 
stood upon the battlements of the castle, gazing 
upon the scene, to them so new and to them so 
pleasantly exciting. As they saw the charges 
of the cavalry trampling the dead and the dy- 



146 King Heney IV. 

Scene from the castle. Claude the Butcher. 

ing beneath their feet, as they witnessed all the 
horrors of that most horrible scene which earth 
can present — a victorious army cutting to pieces 
its flying foes, with shouts of applause they an- 
imated the ardor of the victors. The once fair- 
faced boy had now become a veteran. His 
bronzed cheek and sinewy frame attested his 
life of hardship and toil. The nobles were jeal- 
ous of his power. The king was annoyed by 
his haughty bearing ; but he was the idol of the 
people. In one campaign he caused the death 
of forty thousand Protestants, for he was the 
devoted servant of mother Church. Claude 
the Butcher was the not inappropriate name by 
which the Protestants designated him. His 
brother John attained the dignity of Cardinal 
of Lorraine. Claude with his keen sword, and 
John with pomp, and pride, and spiritual power, 
became the most relentless foes of the Refor- 
mation, and the most valiant defenders of the 
Catholic faith. 

The kind-heartedness of the wealthy but dis- 
solute cardinal, and the prodigality of his char- 
ity, rendered him almost as popular as his war- 
like brother. When he went abroad, his valet 
de chambre invariably prepared him a bag fill- 
ed with gold, from which he gave to the poor 



Valois — Guise — Boukbon. 147 

Tlie (Jardmal of Lorraine. The reprimand. 

most freely. His reputation for charity was so 
exalted that a poor blind mendicant, to whom 
he gave gold in the streets of Rome, overjoyed 
at the acquisition of such a treasure, exclaim- 
ed, " Surely thou art either Christ or the Car- 
dinal of Lorraine." 

The Duke of Guise, in his advancing years, 
was accompanied to the field of battle by his 
son Francis, who inherited all of his father's 
courtly bearing, energy, talent, and headlong 
valor. At the siege of Luxemburg a musket 
ball shattered the ankle of young Francis, then 
Count of Aumale, and about eighteen years of 
age. As the surgeon was operating upon the 
splintered bones and quivering nerves, the suf- 
ferer gave some slight indication of his sense of 
pain. His iron father severely reprimanded 
him, saying, 

"Persons of your rank should not feel their 
wounds, but, on the contrary, should take pleas- 
ure in building up their reputation upon the ruin 
of their bodies." 

Others of the sons of Claude also signalized 
themselves in the wars which then desolated 
Europe, and they received wealth and honors. 
The king erected certain lands and lordships be- 
longing to the Duke of Guise into a marquisate, 



148 King Heney IV. 

Duke of Mayence. The family of Guise. 

and then immediately elevated the marquisate 
into a duchy, and the youngest son of the Duke 
of Guise, inheriting the property, was ennobled 
with the title of the Duke of Mayence. Thus 
there were two rich dukedoms in the same 
family. 

Claude had six sons, all young men of impe- 
rious spirit and magni^cent bearing. They 
were allied by marriage with the most illustri- 
ous families in France, several of them being- 
connected with princes of the blood royal. The 
war-worn duke, covered with wounds which he 
deemed his most glorious, ornaments, often ap- 
peared at court accompanied by his sons. They 
occupied the following posts of rank and power : 
Francis, the eldest. Count of Aumale, was the heir 
of the titles and the estates of the noble house. 
Claude was Marquis of Mayence ; Charles was 
Archbishop of Rheims, the richest benefice in 
France, and he soon attained one of the highest 
dignities of the Church by the reception of a 
cardinal's hat ; Louis was Bishop of Troyes, 
and Francis, the youngest. Chevalier of Lor- 
raine and Duke of Mayence, was general of the 
galleys of France. One of the daughters was 
married to the King of Scotland, and the others 
had formed most illustrious connections. Thus 



1550.] Valois — Guise — Bouebon. 149 

Henry the Eighth. Death of Claude. 

the house of Guise towered proudly and sublime- 
ly from among the noble families in the midst 
of whom it had so recently been implanted. 

Henry YIII. of England, inflamed by the re- 
port of the exceeding beauty of Mary, daughter 
of the Duke of Guise, had solicited her hand ; 
but Claude was unwilling to surrender his 
daughter to England's burly and brutal old ty- 
rant, and declined the regal alliance. The ex- 
asperated monarch, in revenge, declared war 
against France. Years of violence and blood 
lingered away. At last Claude, aged and in- 
firm, surrendered to that king of terrors before 
whom all must bow. In his strong castle of 
Joinville, on the twelfth of April, 1550, the il- 
lustrious, magnanimous, blood-stained duke, 
after a whole lifetime spent in slaughter, breath- 
ed his last. His children and his grandchil- 
dren were gathered around the bed of the dy- 
ing chieftain. In the darkness of that age, he 
felt that he had been contending, with divine ap- 
proval, for Christ and his Church. With pray- 
ers and thanksgivings, and language expressive 
of meekness and humility before God, he as- 
cended to that tribunal of final judgment where 
there is no difference between the peasant and 
the prince. 



150 King Henry IV. 

Francis, Duke of Guise. The dreadful wound. 

The chivalrous and warlike Francis inherit- 
ed his father's titles, wealth, and power ; and 
now the house of Guise was so influential that 
the king trembled in view of its rivalry. It 
was but the kingly office alone which rendered 
the house of Yalois superior to the house of 
Guise. In illustration of the character of those 
times, and the hardihood and sufferings through 
which the renown of these chieftains w^as ob- 
tained, the following anecdote may be narrated. 

Francis, Duke of Guise, in one of the skir- 
mishes with the English invaders, received a 
wound which is described as the most severe 
from which any one ever recovered. The lance 
of an English officer " entered above the right 
eye, declining toward the nose, and piercing- 
through on the other side, between the nape and 
the ear." The weapon, having thus penetrated 
the head more than half a foot, was broken off 
by the violence of the blow, the lance-iron and 
two fingers' breadth of the staff remaining in the 
dreadful wound. The surgeons of the army, 
stupefied by the magnitude of the injury, de- 
clined to attempt the extraction of the splinter, 
saying that it would only expose him to dread- 
ful and unavailing suffering, as he must inevi- 
tably die. The king immediately sent his sur- 



Valois — Guise — Bouebon, 151 

Le Balafro. Interview with the king. 

geon, with orders to spare no possible efforts to 
save the life of the hero. The lance-head was 
broken off so short that it was impossible to 
grasp it with the hand. The surgeon took the 
heavy pincers of a blacksmith, and asked the 
sufferer if he would allow him to make use of 
so rude an instrument, and would also permit 
him to place his foot upon his face. 

" You may do any thing you consider nec- 
essary," said the duke. 

The officers standing around looked on with 
horror as the king's surgeon, aided by an expe- 
rienced practitioner, tore out thus violently the 
barbed iron, fracturing the bones, and tearing 
nerves, veins, and arteries. The hardy soldier 
bore the anguish without the contraction of a 
muscle, and was only heard gently to exclaim 
to himself, "Oh my God!" The sufferer re- 
covered, and ever after regarded the frightful 
scar which was left as a signal badge of honor. 
He hence bore the common name of Le Bala- 
fre, or The Scarred. 

As the duke returned to court, the king hur- 
ried forth from his chamber to meet him, em- 
braced him warmly, and said, 

"It is fair that I should come out to meet 
my old friend, who, on his part, is ever so ready 
to meet my enemies," 



152 King Heney IV. 

Jealousy of the king. Arrogance of the Guises. 

Gradually, however, Francis, the king, be- 
came very jealous of the boundless popularity 
and enormous power acquired by this ambitious 
house. Upon his dying bed he warned his son 
of the dangerous rivalry to which the Guises 
had attained, and enjoined it upon him to curb 
their ambition by admitting none of the princes 
of that house to a share in the government ; but 
as soon as King Francis was consigned to his 
tomb, Henry II., his son and successor, rallied 
the members of this family around him, and 
made the duke almost the partner of his throne. 
He needed the support of the strong arm and 
of the inexhaustible purse of the princes of Lor- 
raine. 

The arrogance of the Guises, or the princes 
of Lorraine, as they were frequently called, in 
consequence of their descent from Claude of 
Lorraine, reached such a pitch that on the oc- 
casion of a proud pageant, when Henry II. was 
on a visit of inspection to one of his frontier 
fortresses, the Duke of Guise claimed equal rank 
with Henry of Navarre, who was not only King 
of Navarre, but, as the Duke of Vendome, was 
also first prince of the blood in France. An an- 
gry dispute immediateiyarose. The king set- 
tled it in favor of the audacious Guise, for he 



Valois — Guise — Bourbon. 153 

Power of the house of Guise. Appointment of Francis. 

was intimidated by the power of tliat arrogant 
house. He thus exasperated Henr j of I^avarre, 
and also nurtured the pride of a dangerous rival. 

All classes were now courting the Duke of 
Guise. The first nobles of the land sought his 
protection and support by flattering letters and 
costly presents. " From all quarters," says an 
ancient manuscript, "he received offerings of 
wine, fruit, confections, ortolans, horses, dogs, 
hawks, and gerfalcons. The letters accompa- 
nying these often contained a second paragraph 
petitioning for pensions or grants from the king, 
or for places, even down to that of apothecary 
or of barber to the Dauphin." The monarchs 
of foreign countries often wrote to him soliciting 
his aid. The duke, in the enjoyment of this 
immense wealth, influence, and power, assumed 
the splendors of royalty, and his court was 
hardly inferior to that of the monarch. The 
King of Poland and the Duke of Guise were ri- 
vals for the hand of Anne, the beautiful daugh- 
ter of the Duke of Ferrara, and Guise was the 
successful suitor. 

Francis of Lorraine was now appointed lieu- 
tenant general of the French armies, and the 
king addressed to all the provincial authorities 
special injunction to render as prompt and ab- 



154 KinCt Henry IV. [1560. 

Thralldom of Henry II. Mary, Queen of Scots. 

solute obedience to the orders of the Duke of 
Guise as if they emanated from himself. "And 
truly," says one of the writers of those times, 
" never had monarch in France been obeyed 
more punctually or witli greater zeal." In fact, 
Guise was now the head of the government, 
and all the great interests of the nation were or- 
dered by his mind. Henry was a feeble prince, 
with neither vigor of body nor energy of intel- 
lect to resist the encroachments of so imperial a 
spirit. He gave many indications of uneasiness 
in view of his own thralldom, but he was en- 
tirely unable to dispense with the aid of his sa- 
gacious ally. 

It will be remembered that one of the daugh- 
ters of Claude, and a sister of Francis, the sec- 
ond duke of Guise, mamed the King of Scot- 
land. Her daughter, the niece of Francis, was 
the celebrated Mary, Queen of Scots. She had 
been sent to France for her education, and she 
was married, when very young, to her cousin 
Francis, son of Henry II. and of the infamous 
Catharine de IMedici. He was heir of the French 
throne. This weddino; was celebrated with the 
utmost magnificence, and the Guises moved on 
the occasion through the palaces of royalty with 
the pride of monarchs. Henry II. was acci- 



1560.] Valois — Guise — Bourbon. 155 

Francis II. Troubles between the Protestants and Catholi?,?. 

dentally killed in a tournament ; and Francis, 
his son, under the title of Francis II., with his 
young and beautiful bride, the unfortunate Mary, 
Queen of Scots, ascended the throne. Francis 
was a feeble-minded, consumptive youth of 16, 
whose thoughts were all centred in his lovely 
wife. Mary, who was but fifteen years of age, 
was fascinating in the extreme, and entirely de- 
voted to pleasure. She gladly transferred all 
the power of the realm to her uncles, the Guises. 
About this time the conflict between the Cath- 
olics and the Protestants began to grow more 
violent. The Catholics drew the sword for the 
extirpation of heresy ; the Protestants grasped 
their arms to defend themselves. The Guises 
consecrated all their energies to the support of 
the Papal Church and to the suppression of the 
Reformation. The feeble boy, Francis II., sat 
languidly upon his throne but seventeen months, 
when he died, on the 5th of December, 1560, 
and his brother, Charles IX., equally enervated 
in mind and with far less moral worth, succeed- 
ed to the crown. The death of Francis II. was 
a heavy blow to the Guises. The Admiral Co- 
ligni, one of the most illustrious of the Protest- 
ants, and the bosom friend of Henry of JSTa- 
v^arre, was standing, with many other nobles, at 



156 King Henry IV. 

Admiral Coligni. Antoinette. 

the bedside of the monarch as he breathed his 
last. 

" Gentlemen," said the admiral, with that 
gravity which was in accordance with his char- 
acter and his religious principles, "the king is 
dead. It is a lesson to teach us all how to live." 

The Protestants could not but rejoice that 
the Guises had thus lost the peculiar influence 
which they had secured from their near rela- 
tionship to the queen. Admiral Coligni retired 
from the death-bed of the monarch to his own 
mansion, and, sitting down by the fire, became 
lost in the most profound reverie. He did not 
observe that his boots were burning until one 
of his friends called his attention to the fact. 

. "Ah !" he replied, "not a week ago, you and 
I would each have given a leg to have things 
take this turn, and now we get off with a pair 
of boots." 

Antoinette, the widow of Claude of Lorraine, 
and the mother of Francis, the then Duke of 
Guise, was still living. She was so rancorous 
in her hostility to the Protestants that she was 
designated by them '-'- Mother of the tyrants 
and enemies of the GospeV Greatly to her 
annoyance, a large number of Protestants con- 
ducted their worship in the little town of Vassy, 



VaLOIS — GrUISE — BoURBON. 157 

Massacre by the Duke of Guise. 

just on the frontier of the domains of the Duke 
of Guise. She was incessantly imploring her 
son to drive off these obnoxious neighbors. The 
duke was at one time journeying with his wife. 
Their route lay through the town of Yassy. His 
suite consisted of two hundred and sixty men 
at arms, all showing the warlike temper of their 
chief, and even far surpassing him in bigoted 
hatred of the Protestants. 

On arriving at Yassy, the duke entered the 
church to hear high mass. It is said that while 
engaged in this act of devotion his ears were an- 
noyed by the psalms of the Protestants, who 
were assembled in the vicinity. He sent an 
imperious message for the minister and the lead- 
ing members of the congregation immediately to 
appear before him. The young men fulfilled 
their mission in a manner so taunting and in- 
sulting that a quarrel ensued, shots were ex- 
changed, and immediately all the vassals of the 
duke, who were ripe for a fray, commenced an 
indiscriminate massacre. The Protestants val- 
iantly but unavailingly defended themselves 
with sticks and stones ; but the bullets of their 
enemies reached them everywhere, in the houses, 
on the roofs, in the streets. For an hour the car- 
nage continued unchecked, and sixty men and 



158 King Henry IV. 

The Butcher of Vassy. Remonstrance to the queen. 

women were killed and two hundred wounded. 
One only of the men of the duke was killed. 
Francis was ashamed of this slaughter of the 
defenseless, and declared that it was a sudden 
outbreak, for which he was not responsible, and 
which he had done every thing in his power to 
check ; but ever after this he was called by the 
Protestants '-^The Butcher of Yassy^ 

When the news of this massacre reached Par- 
is, Theodore de Beza was deputed by the Prot- 
estants to demand of Catharine, their regent, se- 
vere justice on the Duke of Guise ; but Cath- 
arine feared the princes of Lorraine, and said to 
Beza, 

"Whoever touches so much as the finger-tip 
of the Duke of Guise, touches me in the middle 
of my heart." 

Beza meekly but courageously replied, " It 
assuredly behooves that Church of God, in whose 
name I speak, to endure blows and not to strike 
them ; but may it please your majesty also to 
remember that it is an anvil which has worn 
out many hammers." 

At the siege of Rouen the Duke of Guise was 
informed that an assassin had been arrested who 
had entered the camp with the intention of tak- 
ing his life. He ordered the man to be brought 
before him, and calmly inquired, 



Valois — Guise — Bourbon. 159 

" Have you not come hither to kill me?" 

The intrepid but misguided young man open- 
ly avowed his intention. 

"And what motive," inquired the duke, "im- 
pelled you to such a deed ? Have I done you 
any wrong?" 

' ' JSTo, " he replied ; ' ' but in removing you from 
the world I should promote the best interests 
of the Protestant religion, which I profess." 

"My religion, then," generously replied the 
duke, "is better than yours, for it commands 
me to pardon, of my own accord, you who are 
convicted of guilt." And, by his orders, the as- 
sassin was safely conducted out of camp. 

"A fine example, "exclaims his historian, "of 
truly religious sentiments and magnanimous 
proselytism very natural to the Duke of Guise, 
the most moderate and humane of the chiefs of 
the Catholic army, and whose brilliant generos- 
ity had been but temporarily obscured by the 
occurrence at Yassy." 

^ The war between the Catholics and Protest- 
ants was now raging with implacable fury, and 
Guise, victorious in many battles, had acquired 
from the Catholic party the name of " Savior of 
his Country." The duke was now upon the 
very loftiest summits of power which a subject 



160 King Henry IV. 

Assassination of the Duke of Guise. 

can attain. In great exaltation of spirits, he 
one morning left the army over which he was 
commander-in-chief to visit the duchess, who 
had come to meet him at the neighboring castle 
of Corney. The duke very imprudently took 
with him merely one general officer and a page. 
It was a beautiful morning in February. As 
he crossed, in a boat, the mirrored surface of the 
Loiret, the vegetation of returning spring and 
- the songs of the rejoicing birds strikingly con- 
trasted with the blood, desolation, and misery 
with which the hateful spirit of war was deso- 
lating France. The duke was silent, apparent- 
ly lost in painful reveries. His companions 
disturbed not his thoughts. Having crossed 
the stream, he was slowly walking his horse, 
with the reins hanging listlessly upon his mane, 
when a pistol was discharged at him from be- 
hind a hedge, at a distance of but six or seven 
paces. Two bullets pierced his side. On feel- 
ing himself wounded, he calmly said, 

" They have long had this shot in reserve for 
me. I deserve it for my want of precaution." 
He immediately fell upon his horse's neck, 
and was caught in the arms of his friends. 
They conveyed him to the castle, where the 
duchess received him with cries of anguish. He 







-'(^%ir 



1563.] Valois— Guise — Bourbon. 163 

Death of the duke. Jean Poltrot. 

embraced her tenderly, minutely described tbe 
circumstances of bis assassination, and express- 
ed himself grieved in view of the stain which 
such a crime would inflict upon the honor of 
France. He exhorted his wife to bow in sub- 
mission to the, will of Heaven, and kissing his 
son Henry, the Duke of Joinville, who was 
weeping by his side, gently said to him, 

"God grant thee grace, my son, to be a good 
man." 

Thus died Francis, the second Duke of Guise, 
on the twenty-fourth of February, 1563. His 
murderer was a young Protestant noble, Jean 
Poltrot, twenty-four years of age. Poltrot, from 
being an ardent Catholic, had embraced the Prot- 
estant faith. This exposed him to persecution, 
and he was driven from France with the loss of 
his estates. He was compelled to support him- 
self by manual labor. Soured in disposition, 
exasperated and half maddened, he insanely felt 
that he would be doing God service by the as- 
sassination of the Butcher of Vassy, the most 
formidable foe of the Protestant religion. It 
was a day of general darkness, and of the con- 
fusion of all correct ideas of morals. 

Henry, the eldest son of the Duke of Guise, 
a lad of but thirteen years of age, now inherited 



164 King Henry IV. 

Anecdote. Prediction of Francis. 

the titles and the renown which his bold ances- 
tors had accumulated. This was the Duke of 
Guise who was the bandit chieftain in the Mas- 
sacre of St. Bartholomew. 

One day Hemy II. was holding his little 
daughter JMarguerite, who afterward became the 
mfe of Henry of Navarre, in his lap, when Hen- 
ry of Guise, then Prince of Joinville, and the 
Marquis of Beaupreau, were playing together 
upon the floor, the one being but seven years 
of age, and the other but nine. 

" Which of the two do you like the best?" 
inquired the king of his child. 

"I prefer the marquis," she promptly replied. 

"Yes; but the Prince of Joinville is the hand- 
somest," the king rejoined. 

" Oh," retorted Marguerite, " he is always in 
mischief, and he will be master every where." 

Francis, the Duke of Guise, had fully appre- 
hended the ambitious, impetuous, and reckless 
character of his son. He is said to have pre- 
dicted that Henry, intoxicated by popularity, 
would perish in the attempt to seat himself upon 
the throne of France. 

" Henry," says a writer of those times, " sur- 
passed all the princes of his house in certain 
natural gifts, in certain talents, which procured 



Valois — Guise — Bourbon. 165 

Enthusiasm of the populace. The house of Bourbon. 

him the respect of the court, the affection of the 
people, but which, nevertheless, were tarnished 
by a singular alloy of great faults and unlimit- 
ed ambition." 

"France was mad about that man," writes 
another, " for it is too little to say that she was 
in love with him. Her passion approached idol- 
atry. There were persons who invoked him in 
their prayers. His portrait was every where. 
Some ran after him in the streets to touch his 
mantle with their rosaries. One day that he 
entered Paris on his return from a journey, the 
multitude not only cried ' Vive Guise P but 
many sang, on his passage, ^Hosanna to the son 
of David r'' 

3. The House of Bourbon, The origin of 
this family fades away in the remoteness of an- 
tiquity. Some bold chieftain, far remote in bar- 
barian ages, emerged from obscurity and laid 
the foundations of the illustrious house. Gen- 
eration after generation passed away, as the son 
succeeded the father in baronial pomp, and 
pride, and power, till the light of history, with 
its steadily-increasing brilliancy, illumined Eu- 
rope. The family had often been connected in 
marriage both with the house of Guise and the 
royal line, the house of Valois. Antony of Bour- 



166 King Henry IV. 

The houses united. 

bon, a sturdy soldier, united the houses of Bour- 
bon and Navarre by marrying Jeanne d'Albret, 
the only child of the King of Navarre. Henry 
came from the union, an only son ; and he, by 
marrying Marguerite, the daughter of the King 
of France, united the houses of Bourbon, Na- 
varre, and Yalois, and became heir to the throne 
of France should the sons of Henry II. die with- 
out issue. 

This episode in reference to the condition of 
France at the time of which we write seems nec- 
essary to enable the reader fully to understand 
the succeeding chapters. 



Death of Charles IX. 167 



Henry, King of Poland. 



Chapter YII. 

The Death of Charles IX. and the 
Accession of Henry III. 

AFTER the ^Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 
a large number of the Protestants threw 
themselves into the city of E,ochelle. Tor sev- 
en months thej were besieged by all the power 
which the King of France could bring against 
them. They were at length, weakened by sick- 
ness and exhausted by famine, compelled to sur- 
render. By then* valiant resistance, however, 
they obtained highly honorable terms, securing 
for the inhabitants of Rochelle the free exercise 
of their religion within the walls of the city, 
and a general act of amnesty for all the Prot- 
estants in the realm. 

Immediately after this event, Henry, the broth- 
er of Charles IX., was elected King of Poland, 
an honor which he attained in consequence of 
the military prowess he had displayed in the 
wars against the Protestants of France. Ac- 
companied by his mother, Catharine de ^Medici, 
the young monarch set out for his distant do- 



168 King Heney IV. 

Henry's journey through Germany. 

minions. Heniy had been a veiy active agent 
in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. At Lor- 
raine Catharine took leave of him, and he went 
on his way in a very melancholy mood. His 
election had been secured by the greatest efforts 
of intrigue and bribery on the part of his moth- 
er. The melancholy countenances of the Prot- 
estants, driven into exile, and bewailing the mur- 
der of friends and relatives, whose assassination 
he had caused, met him at every turn. His re- 
ception at the German courts was cold and re- 
pulsive. In the palace of the Elector Palatine, 
Henry beheld the portrait of Coligni, who had 
been so treacherously slaughtered in the Massa- 
cre of St. Bartholomew. The portrait was sus- 
pended in a very conspicuous place of honor, 
and beneath it were inscribed the words, 

"Such was the foemer countenance of the hero 
Coligni, who has been rendered truly illustrious 
both by his life and his death." 

The Protestant Elector pointed out the pic- 
ture to the young king, whom he both hated 
and despised, and coolly asked him if he knew 
the man. Henry, not a little embarrassed, re- 
plied that he did. 

"He was," rejoined the German prince, "the 
most honest man, and the wisest and the great- 



Death of Chaeles IX. 169 

Enmity between the two brotliers. 

est captain of Europe, whose children I keep 
with me, lest the dogs of France should tear 
them as their father has been torn." 

Thus Henry, gloomy through the repulses 
which he was ever encountering, journeyed 
along to Poland, where he was crowned king, 
notwithstanding energetic remonstrances on the 
part of those who execrated him for his deeds. 
The two brothers, Charles IX. and Henry, were 
bitter enemies, and Charles had declared, with 
many oaths, that one of the two should leave 
the realm. Henry was the favorite of Catha- 
rine, and hence she made such efforts to secure 
his safety by placing him upon the throne of 
Poland. She was aware that the feeble Charles 
would not live long, and when, with tears, she 
took leave of Henry, she assured him that he 
would soon return. 

The outcry of indignation which the Massa- 
cre of St. Bartholomew called forth from com- 
bined Europe fell like the knell of death on the 
ear of the depraved and cowardly Charles. Dis- 
ease began to ravage, with new violence, his ex- 
hausted frame. He became silent, morose, ir- 
ritable, and gloomy. He secluded himself from 
all society, and surrendered himself to the do- 
minion of remorse. He was detested by the 



170 King Henry IV. 

Sickness of Charles IX. 

Protestants, and utterly despised by the Cath- 
olics. A bloody sweat, oozing from every pore, 
crimsoned his bed-clothes. His occasional out- 
cries of remorse and his aspect of misery drove 
all from his chamber excepting those who were 
compelled to render him service. He groaned 
and wept incessantly, exclaiming, 

" Oh, what blood ! oh, what murders ! Alas I 
why did I follow such evil counsels ?" 

He saw continually the spectres of the slain, 
with ghastly, gory wounds, stalking about his 
bed ; and demons of hideous aspect, and with 
weapons of torture in their hands, with horrid 
and derisive malice, were impatiently waiting to 
seize his soul the moment it should pass from 
the decaying body. 

The day before his death he lay for some 
time upon his bed in perfect silence. Sudden- 
ly starting up, he exclaimed, 

"Call my brother." 

His mother, who was sitting by his side, di- 
rected an attendant to call his brother Francis, 
the Duke of Alen9on. 

"No, not him," the king replied; "my broth- 
er, the King of Navarre,! mean." 

Henry of Navarre was then detained in 
princely imprisonment in the court of Catha- 



Death of Charles IX. 171 

Eemorse of the king. 

rine. He had made many efforts to escape, but 
all had been unavailing. 

Catharine directed that Henry should be call- 
ed. In order to intimidate him, and thus to 
prevent him from speaking with freedom and 
boldness to her dying son, she ordered him to 
be brought through the vaults of the castle, be- 
tween a double line of armed guards. Henry, 
as he descended into those gloomy dungeons, 
and saw the glittering arms of the soldiers, felt 
that the hour for his assassination had arrived. 
He, however, passed safely through, and was 
ushered into the chamber of his brother-in-law 
and former playfellow, the dying king. Charles 
IX., subdued by remorse and appalled by ap- 
proaching death, received him with gentleness 
and affection, and weeping profusely, embraced 
him as he knelt by his bedside. 

"My brother," said the dying king, "you 
lose a good master and a good friend. I know 
that you are not the cause of the troubles which 
have come upon me. If I had believed all 
which has been told me, you would not now 
have been living ; but I have always loved you." 
Then turning his eyes to the queen mother, he 
said energetically, " Do not trust to — " Here 
Catharine hastily interrupted him, and prevent- 



172 King Henry IV. 

Death of Charles IX, Chateaubriand. 

ed the finishing of the sentence with the words 
" my mother, ^^ 

Charles designated his brother Henry, the 
King of Poland, as his successor. He express- 
ed the earnest wish that neither his younger 
brother, Francis, the Duke of Alen^on, nor Hen- 
ry, would disturb the repose of the realm. The 
next night, as the Cathedral clock was tolling 
the hour of twelve, the nurse, who was sitting, 
with two watchers, at the bedside of the dying- 
monarch, heard him sighing and moaning, and 
then convulsively weeping. Gently she ap- 
proached the bed and drew aside the curtains. 
Charles turned his dimmed and despairing eye 
upon her, and exclaimed, 

" Oh, my nurse ! my nurse ! what blood 
have I shed! what murders have I committed! 
Great God! pardon me — pardon me!" 

A convulsive shuddering for a moment agi- 
tated his frame, his head fell back upon his 
pillow, and the wretched man was dead. He 
died at twenty-four years of age, expressing 
satisfaction that he left no heir to live and to 
suffer in a world so full of misery. In reference 
to this guilty king, Chateaubriand says, 

" Should we not have some pity for this mon- 
arch of twenty-three years, born with fine tal- 



Death 


OF 


c 


HARLES 


IX. 


173 


Character of the king. 










Henry III. 



ents, a taste for literature and the arts, a char- 
acter naturally generous, whom an execrable 
mother had tried to deprave by all the abuses 
of debauchery and power ?" 

"Yes," warmly responds G. de Felice, "we 
will have compassion for him, with the Hugue- 
nots themselves, whose fathers he ordered to be 
slain, and who, with a merciful hand, would 
wipe away the blood which covers his face to 
find still something human." 

Henry, his brother, who was to succeed him 
upon the throne, was then in Poland. Catha- 
rine was glad to have the pusillanimous Charles 
out of the way. He was sufficiently depraved 
to commit any crime, without being sufficiently 
resolute to brave its penalty. Henry III. had, 
in early life, displayed great vigor of character. 
At the age of fifteen he had been placed in the 
command of armies, and in several combats had 
defeated the veteran generals of the Protestant 
forces. His renown had extended through Eu- 
rope, and had contiibuted much in placing him 
on the elective throne of Poland. Catharine, 
by the will of the king, was appointed regent 
until the return of Henry. She immediately 
dispatched messengers to recall the King of Po- 
land. In the mean time, she kept Henry of Na- 



174 King Henry IV. 

The stratagem. Flight from the cro^vn, 

varre and lier youngest son, the Duke ol Alen- 
9on, in close captivity, and watclied them with 
the greatest vigilance, that they might make no 
movements toward the throne. 

Henry was by this time utterly weary of his 
Polish crown, and sighed for the voluptuous 
pleasures of Paris. The Poles were not willing 
that their king should leave the realm, as it 
might lead to civil war in the choice of a suc- 
cessor. Henry was compelled to resort to strat- 
agem to effect his escape. A large and splen- 
did party was invited to the palace. A wil- 
derness of rooms, brilliantly illuminated, were 
thrown open to the guests. Masked dancers 
walked the floor in every variety of costume. 
Wine and wassail filled the halls with revehy. 
When all were absorbed in music and mirth, 
the king, by a private passage, stole fi'om the 
palace, and mounting a swift horse, which was 
awaiting him in the court-yard, accompanied by 
two or three friends, commenced his flight from 
his crown and his Polish throne. Throuo'h the 
long hours of the night they pressed their horses 
to their utmost speed, and when the morning- 
dawned, obtaining fresh steeds, they hurried on 
their way, tarrying not for refreshment or repose 
until they had passed the frontiers of the king- 



Death of Charles IX. 175 

The sojourn in Italy. The three Henrys. 

dom. Henry was afraid to take the direct route 
through the Protestant states of Germany, for 
the Massacre of St. Bartholomew was still bit- 
terly rememhered. He therefore took a circui- 
tous route through Italy, and arrived at Venice 
in August. In sunny Italy he lingered for 
some time, surrendering himself to every ener- 
vating indulgence, and even bartering the for- 
tresses of France to purchase the luxuries in the 
midst of which he was reveling. At last, sated 
with guilty pleasure, he languidly turned his 
steps toward Paris. 

There were now three Henrys, who had been 
companions in childhood, who were at the head 
of the three rival houses of Yalois, of Bourbon, 
and of Guise. One of these was King of France. 
One was King of Navarre. But Henry of Guise 
was, in wealth and in the attachment of the 
Catholic population of France, superior to ei- 
ther. The war which ensued is sometimes call- 
ed The War of the three Henrys, 

As soon as his mother learned that he was 
approaching France, she set out from Paris with 
a magnificent retinue to meet her pet child, tak- 
ing with her his brother, the Duke of Alen^on, 
and Henry of JSTavarre. Dissipation had im- 
paired the mental as well as the physical ener- 



176 King Heney IV. 

Marriage of Henry III. The Duke of Alenfon. 

gies of the king, and a maudlin good-nature had 
absorbed all his faculties. He greeted his broth- 
er and his brother-in-law with much kindness, 
and upon receiving their oaths of obedience, 
withdrew much of the restraint to which they 
previously had been subjected. Henry was 
now known as Henry III. of France. Soon 
after his coronation he married Louisa of Lor- 
raine, a daughter of one of the sons of the Duke 
of Guise. She was a pure-minded and lovely 
woman, and her mild and gentle virtues con- 
trasted strongly with the vulgarity, coarseness, 
and vice of her degraded husband. 

The Duke of Alen^on was, however, by no 
means appeased by the kindness with which he 
had been received by his brother the king. He 
called him the robber of his crown, and formed 
a conspiracy for attacking the carriage of his 
brother and putting him to death. The plot 
was revealed to the king. He called his brother 
to his presence, reproached him with his perfi- 
dy and ingratitude, but generously forgave him. 
But the heart of Alen^on was impervious to any 
appeals of generosity or of honor. Upon the 
death of Henry III., the Duke of Alen9on, his 
only surviving brother, would ascend the throne. 

The Duke of Guise hated with implacable 



Death of Charles IX. 177 

Suspicions of poison. Invectives of the king, 

rancor tlie Duke of Alen9on, and even proffered 
his aid to place Henry of Navarre upon the 
throne in the event of the death of the king, 
that he might thus exclude his detested rival. 
Francis, the Duke of Alen9on, was impatient to 
reach the crown, and again formed a plot to poi- 
son his brother. The king was suddenly taken 
very ill. He declared his brother had poisoned 
him. As each succeeding day his illness grew 
more severe, and the probabilities became stron- 
ger of its fatal termination, Francis assumed an 
air of haughtiness and of authority, as if confi- 
dent that the crown was already his own. The 
open exultation which he manifested in view of 
the apparently dying condition of his brother 
Henry confirmed all in the suspicion that he 
had caused poison to be administered. 

Henry III., believing his death inevitable, 
called Henry of Navarre to his bedside, and 
heaping the bitterest invectives upon his broth- 
er Francis, urged Henry of Navarre to procure 
his assassination, and thus secure for himself 
the vacant throne. Henry of Navarre was the 
next heir to the throne after the Duke of Alen- 
9on, and the dying king most earnestly urged 
Henry to put the duke to death, showing him 
the ease with which it could be done, and assur- 

M 



178 King Henry IV. 



Kecovery of the king. Disappointment of Fi'ancis. 

ing liim that lie would be abundantly supported 
by all the leading nobles of the kingdom. While 
this scene was taking place at the sick-bed of the 
monarch, Francis passed through the chamber 
of his brother without deigning to notice either 
him or the King of Navarre. Strongly as Hen- 
ry of Navarre was desirous of securing for him- 
•self the throne of France, he was utterly incapa- 
ble of meditating even upon such a crime, and 
he refused to give it a second thought. 

To the surprise of all, the king recovered, and 
Francis made no efforts to conceal his disap- 
pointment. There were thousands of armed in- 
surgents ready at any moment to rally around 
the banner of the Duke of Alen9on, for they 
would thus be brought into positions of emolu- 
ment and power. The king, who was ready 
himself to act the assassin, treated his assassin- 
brother with the most profound contempt. JSTo 
description can convey an adequate idea of the 
state of France at this time. Universal anar- 
chy prevailed. Civil war, exasperated by the 
utmost rancor, was raging in nearly all the prov- 
inces. Assassinations were continually occur- 
ring. Female virtue was almost unknown, and 
the most shameful licentiousness filled the cap- 
ital. The treasury was so utterly exhausted 



Death of Charles IX. 179 

Fanaticism of the king. Escape of the Duke of Alengon. 

that, in a journey made hj the king and his reti- 
nue in mid- winter, the pages were obliged to sell 
their cloaks to obtain a bare subsistence. The 
king, steeped in pollution, a fanatic and a hypo- 
crite, exhibited himself to his subjects bare- 
headed, barefooted, and half naked, scourging 
himself with a whip, reciting his prayers, and 
preparing the way, by the most ostentatious 
penances, to plunge anew into every degrading 
sensual indulgence. He was thoroughly de- 
spised by his subjects, and many were anxious 
to exchange him for the reckless and impetu- 
ous, but equally depraved Francis. 

The situation of the Duke of Alen^on was 
now not only very uncomfortable, but exceed- 
ingly perilous. The king did every thing in his 
power to expose him to humiliations, and was 
evidently watching for an opportunity to put 
him to death, either by the dagger or by a cup 
of poison. The duke, aided by his profligate 
sister Marguerite, wife of Hemy of Navarre, 
formed a plan for escape. 

One dark evening he wrapped himself in a 
large cloak, and issued forth alone from the Lou- 
vre. Passing through obscure streets, he ar- 
rived at the suburbs of the city, where a car- 
riage with trusty attendants was in waiting. 



180 King Heney IV. 

The king aroused. "War of the public good. 

Driving as rapidly as possible, he gained the 
open country, and then mounting a very fleet 
charger, which by previous appointment was pro- 
vided for him, he spurred his horse at the ut- 
most speed for many leagues, till he met an es- 
cort of three hundred men, with whom he took 
refuge in a fortified town. His escape was not 
known in the palace until nine o'clock the next 
morning. Henry was exceedingly agitated when 
he received the tidings, for he knew that his en- 
ergetic and reckless brother would join the Prot- 
estant party, carrying with him powerful influ- 
ence, and thus add immeasurably to the distrac- 
tions which now crowded upon the king. 

For once, imminent peril roused Henry III. 
to vigorous action. He forgot his spaniels, his 
parrots, his monkeys, and even his painted con- 
cubines, and roused himself to circumvent the 
plans of his hated rival. Letter after letter was 
sent to all the provinces, informing the govern- 
ors of the flight of the prince, and commanding 
the most vigorous efforts to secure his arrest. 
Francis issued a proclamation declaring the rea- 
sons for his escape, and calling upon the Prot- 
estants and all who loved the " public good" to 
rally around him. Hence the short but merci- 
less war which ensued was called " the war of 
the public good." 



Death of Charles IX. 181 

Defeat of Guise. Perplexity of Catharine. 

The Duke of Alen9on was now at the head 
of a powerful party, for he had thrown himself 
into the arms of the Protestants, and many of 
his Catholic partisans followed him. Henry 
III. called to his aid the fearless and energetic 
Duke of Guise, and gave him the command of 
his armies. In the first terrible conflict which 
ensued Guise was defeated, and received a hid- 
eous gash upon his face, which left a scar of 
which he was very proud as a signet of valor. 

Catharine was now in deep trouble. Her two 
sons were in open arms against each other, head- 
ing powerful forces, and sweeping France with 
whirlwinds of destruction. Henry of Navarre 
was still detained a prisoner in the French court, 
though surrounded by all the luxuries and im 
dulgences of the capital. The dignity of his 
character, and his great popularity, alarmed 
Catharine, lest, in the turmoil of the times, he 
should thrust both of her sons from the throne, 
and grasp the crown himself. Henry and his 
friends all became fully convinced that Catha- 
rine entertained designs upon his life. Margue- 
rite was fully satisfied that it was so, and, bad 
as she was, as Henry interfered not in the slight- 
est degree with any of her practices, she felt a 
certain kind of regard for him. The guards 



182 King Heney IV. 

The guard of honor. Plan of escape. 

wlio had been assigned to Hemy professedly as 
a mark of honor, and to add to the splendor of 
his establishment, were in reality his jailers, 
who watched him with an eagle eye. They 
were all zealous Papists, and most of them, in 
t'K^e Massacre of St. Bartholomew, had dipped 
their hands deep in Protestant blood. Catha- 
rine watched him with unceasing vigilance, and 
crowded every temptation upon him which could 
enervate and ruin. Her depravity did but stim- 
ulate her woman's shrewdness and tact. 

Henry of Navarre sighed for liberty. He was, 
however, so closely guarded that escape seemed 
impossible. At last the following plan was 
formed for flight. A hunting-party was got up. 
Henry was to invite persons to attend the chase 
in whose fidelity he could repose confidence, 
while one only was to be intrusted with the 
secret. Others of his friends were secretly to 
resort to an appointed rendezvous with fresh 
horses, and all well armed and in sufficient num- 
bers to overpower the guard placed about his 
person. Henry was to press on in the chase 
with the utmost eagerness until the horses of 
the guard were completely exhausted, when his 
friends with the fresh steeds were to appear, 
rescue him from the guards, and accompany him 



Death op Charles IX. 18:5 

Successful artifice. The false rumor. 

in liis flight. The guards, being drawn far from 
the palace, could not speedily obtain fresh horses, 
neither could they pursue him with their jaded 
animals. 

The Duke of Guise was now in great favor 
with Henry III. Henry of Navarre, during the 
few days in which he was making preparation 
for his flight, blinded the eagle eyes of the duke 
by affecting great confidence that he should ob- 
tain from the king the high office of Lieutenant 
General of France. The duke and Henry III. 
made themselves very merry over this supposed 
simplicity of Henry of Navarre, little aware that 
he was making himself equally merry at their 
expense. ' 

Two days before the execution of the scheme, 
a rumor spread through the court that Henry 
had escaped. For a short time great anxiety 
and confusion ensued. Henry, being informed 
of the report and of the agitation which filled 
the palace, hastened to the apartments where 
Catharine and the king were in deliberation, and 
laughingly told them that he had arrested the 
King of Navarre, and that he now suiTendered 
him to them for safe keeping. 

In the morning of the day fixed for his flight, 
the King of Navarre held a long and familiar 



184 King Henry IV. 

Escape accomplished. Trouble of the Duke of Alengon. 

conversation with the Duke of Guise, and urged 
him to accompany him to the hunt. Just as 
the moment arrived for the execution of the 
plot, it was betrayed to the king "by the treach- 
ery of a confederate. Notwithstanding this be- 
trayal, however, matters were so thoroughly ar- 
ranged that Henry, after several hair-breadth 
escapes ftom arrest, accomplished his flight. 
His apprehension was so great that for sixty 
miles he rode as rapidly as possible, without 
speaking a word or stopping for one moment 
except to mount a fresh horse. He rode over 
a hundred miles on horseback that day, and took 
refuge in Alen^on, a fortified city held by the 
Protestants. As soon as his escape was known, 
thousands of his friends flocked around him. 

The Duke of Alen9on was not a little troub- 
led at the escape of the King of Navarre, for he 
was well aware that the authority he had ac- 
quired among the Protestants would be lost by 
the presence of one so much his superior in ev- 
ery respect, and so much more entitled to the 
confidence of the Protestants. Thus the two 
princes remained separate, but ready, in case of 
emergence, to unite their forces, which now 
amounted to fifty thousand men. Henry of 
Navarre soon established his head-quarters on 



Death op Charles IX. 185 

Terms of settlement. Paix de Monsieur, 

the banks of the Loire, where every day fresh 
parties of Protestants were joining his standard. 
Henry III., with no energy of character, de- 
spised by his subjects, and without either money 
or armies, seemed to be now entirely at the mer- 
cy of the confederate princes. Henry of Na- 
varre and the Duke of Alen9on sent an embas- 
sador to the French court to propose terms to 
Henry III. The King of Navarre required, 
among other conditions, that France should unite 
with him in recovering from Spain that portion 
of the territory of Navarre which had been wrest- 
ed from his ancestors by Ferdinand and Isabel- 
la. While the proposed conditions of peace 
were under discussion, Catharine succeeded in 
bribing her son, the Duke of Alen9on, to aban- 
don the cause of Henry of Navarre. A treaty 
of peace was then concluded with the Protest- 
ants ; and by a royal edict, the full and free ex- 
ercise of the Protestant religion was guaranteed 
in every part of France except Paris and a cir- 
cle twelve miles in diameter around the capital. 
As a bribe to the Duke of Alen^on, he was in- 
vested with sovereign power over the three most 
important provinces of the realm, with an an- 
nual income of one hundred thousand crowns. 
This celebrated treaty, called the Paix de Mbn- 



186 King Henry IV. [1576. 

Duke of Anjou. Arrival at Rochelle. 

sieur, because concluded under the auspices of 
Francis, the brother of the king, was signed at 
Chastenoy the sixth of May, 1576. 

The ambitious and perfidious duke now as- 
sumed the title of the Duke of Anjou, and en- 
tirely separated himself from the Protestants. 
He tried to lure the Prince of Conde, the cousin 
and devoted friend of Henry of Navarre, to ac- 
company him into the town of Bourges. The 
prince, suspecting treachery, refused the invita- 
tion, saying that some rogue would probably 
be found in the city who would send a bullet 
through his head. 

" The rogue would be hanged, I know," he 
added, "but the Prince of Conde would be dead. 
I will not give you occasion, my lord, to hang 
rogues for love of me." 

He accordingly took his leave of the Duke 
of Alen9on, and, putting spurs to his horse, with 
fifty followers joined the King of Navarre. 

Henry was received with royal honors in the 
Protestant town of Eochelle, where he publicly 
renounced the Roman Catholic faith, declaring 
that he had assented to that faith from compul- 
sion, and as the only means of saving his life. 
He also publicly performed penance for the sin 
which he declared that he had thus been com- 
pelled to commit. 



Death of Charles IX. 187 

Conduct of (Jatharine and Henry III. 

Catharine and Henry HI., having detached 
Francis, who had been the Duke of Alen9on, but 
who was now the Duke of Anjou,from the Prot- 
estants, no longer feigned any friendship or even 
toleration for that cause. They acted upon the 
principle that no faith was to be kept with her- 
etics. The Protestants, notwithstanding the 
treaty, were exposed to every species of insult 
and injury. The Catholics were determined 
that the Protestant religion should not be tol- 
erated in France, and that all who did not con- 
form to the Church of Rome should either per- 
ish or be driven from the kingdom. Many of 
the Protestants were men of devoted piety, who 
cherished their religious convictions more tena- 
ciously than life. There were others, however, 
who joined them merely from motives of polit- 
ical ambition. Though the Protestant party, 
in France itself, was comparatively small, the 
great mass of the population being Catholics, 
yet the party was extremely influential from the 
intelligence and the rank of its leaders, and from 
the unconquerable energy with which all of its 
members were animated. 

The weak and irresolute king was ever vacil- 
lating between the two parties. The Duke of 
Guise was the great idol of the Catholics. Hen- 



188 King Heney IV. 

Complexity of politics. Francis and Queen Elizabeth. 

rj of Navarre was the acknowledged leader of 
the Protestants. The king feared them both. 
It was very apparent that Henry III. could 
not live long. At his death his brother Fran- 
cis, Duke of Anjou, would ascend the throne. 
Should he die childless, Henry of Navarre would 
be his lawfal successor. But the Catholics 
would be horror-stricken at the idea of seeing a 
heretic on the throne. The Duke of Guise was 
laying his plans deep and broad to array all the 
Catholic population of France in his own favor, 
and thus to rob the Protestant prince of his 
rights. Henry III., Henry of Navarre, Henry, 
Duke of Guise, and Francis, Duke of Anjou, 
had all been playmates in childhood and class- 
mates at school. They were now heading ar- 
mies, and struggling for the prize of the richest 
crown in Europe. 

Francis was weary of waiting for his brother 
to die. To strengthen himself, he sought in 
marriage the hand of Queen Elizabeth of En- 
gland. Though she had no disposition to re- 
ceive a husband, she was ever very happy to be 
surrounded by lovers. She consequently play- 
ed the coquette with Francis until he saw that 
there was no probability of the successful term- 
ination of his suit. Francis returned to Paris 



Death of Chaeles IX. 189 

New assaults on the Protestants. 

bitterly disappointed, and with new zeal conse- 
crated his sword to the cause of the Catholics. 
Had Elizabeth accepted his suit, he would then 
most earnestly have espoused the cause of the 
Protestants. 

Henry III. now determined to make a vigor- 
ous effort to crush the Protestant religion. He 
raised large armies, and gave the command to 
the Duke of Anjou, the Duke of Guise, and to 
the brother of the Duke of Guise, the Duke of 
Mayenne. Henry of Navarre, encountering fear- 
ful odds, was welcomed by acclamation to head 
the small but indomitable band of Protestants, 
now struggling, jiot for liberty only, but for life. 
The king was very anxious to get Henry of 
Navarre again in his power, and sent most flat- 
tering messages and most pressing invitations 
to lure him again to his court ; but years of 
captivity had taught a lesson of caution not 
soon to be forgotten. 

Again hideous war ravaged France. The 
Duke of Anjou, exasperated by disappointed 
love, disgraced himself by the most atrocious 
cruelties. He burned the dwellings of the Prot- 
estants, surrendered unarmed and defenseless 
men, and women, and children to massacre. 
The Duke of Guise, who had inflicted such an 



190 King Henky IV. 

Anecdote of the Protestants. 

ineffaceable stain upon his reputation by the 
foul murder of the Admiral Coligni, made some 
atonement for this shameful act by the chival- 
rous spirit with which he endeavored to miti- 
gate the horrors of civil war. 

One day, in the vicinity of Bayonne, a party 
of Catholics, consisting of a few hundred horse 
and foot, were conducting to their execution 
three Protestant young ladies, who, for their 
faith, were infamously condemned to death. As 
they were passing over a wide plain, covered 
with broken woods and heath, they were en- 
countered by a body of Protestants. A desper- 
ate battle immediately ensued. The Protest- 
ants, impelled by a noble chivalry as well as by 
religious fervor, rushed upon their foes with such 
impetuosity that resistance was unavailing, and 
the Catholics threw down their arms and im- 
plored quarter. Many of these soldiers were 
from the city of Dux. The leader of the Prot- 
estant band remembered tha*t at the Massacre 
of St. Bartholomew all the Protestants in that 
city had been slain without mercy. With a 
most deplorable want of magnanimity, he caused 
all the prisoners who belonged to that place to 
be separated from the rest, and in cold blood 
they were slaughtered. 



Death of Chaeles IX. 191 

Gratitude of the citizens of Bayonne. 

The remainder of the prisoners were from 
the city of Bayonne, whose inhabitants, though 
Catholics, had nobly refused to imbrue their 
hands in the blood of that horrible massacre 
which Charles IX. had enjoined. To them, 
after they had seen their comrades surrendered 
to butchery before their eyes, he restored their 
horses and their arms, and gave them their en- 
tire liberty. 

"Go," said he, "to your homes, and there 
tell the different treatment which I show to sol- 
diers and to assassins." 

The three ladies, thus rescued from impend- 
ing death, were borne back in triumph to their 
friends. Eight days after this, a trumpet was 
sounded and a flag of truce appeared emerging 
from the gates of Bayonne. The friends of the 
Catholic soldiers who had been thus generously 
restored sent a beautifully embroidered scarf 
and a handkerchief to each one of the Protest- 
ant soldiers. 

It is a singular illustration of the blending of 
the horrors of war and the courtesies of peace, 
that in the midst of this sanguinary conflict, 
Henry of Navarre, accompanied by only six com- 
panions, accepted an invitation to a fete given 
by his enemies of the town of Bayonne. He 



192 King Henry IV. [1577. 

Anecdote of Henry of Navarre. Another peace. 

was received with the utmost courtesy. His 
table was loaded with luxuries. Voluptuous 
music floated upon the ear ; songs and dances 
animated the festive hours. Henry then return- 
ed to head his army and to meet his entertain- 
ers in the carnage of the field of battle. 

There was but little repose in France during 
the year 1577. Skirmish succeeded skirmish, 
and battle was followed by battle ; cities were 
bombarded, villages burned, fields ravaged. All 
the pursuits of industry were arrested. Ruin, 
beggary, and woe desolated thousands of once 
happy homes. Still the Protestants were un- 
subdued. The king's resources at length were 
entirely exhausted, and he was compelled again 
to conclude a treaty of peace. Both parties im- 
mediately disbanded their forces, and the bless- 
ings of repose followed the discords of war. 

One of the Protestant generals, immediately 
upon receiving the tidings of peace, set out at 
the utmost speed of his horse to convey the in- 
telligence to Languedoc, where very numerous 
forces of Protestants and Catholics were prepar- 
ing for conflict. He spurred his steed over hills 
and plains till he saw, gleaming in the rays of 
the morning sun, the banners of the embattled 
hosts arrayed against each other on a vast plain. 



Death of Charles IX. 193 

The battle arrested. Pledge of peace. 

The drums and the trumpets were just beginning 
to sound the dreadful charge which in a few 
moments would strew that plain with mangled 
limbs and crimson it with blood. The artillery 
on the adjoining eminences was beginning to 
utter its voice of thunder, as balls, more destruct- 
ive than the fabled bolts of Jove, were thrown 
into the massive columns marching to the dread- 
ful onset. A few moments later, and the cry, 
the uproar, and the confusion of the battle would 
blind every eye and deafen every ear. La Noue, 
almost frantic with the desire to stop the need- 
less effusion of blood, at the imminent risk of 
being shot, galloped between the antagonistic ar- 
mies, waving energetically the white banner of 
peace, and succeeded in arresting the battle. 
His generous effort saved the lives of thousands. 
Henry III. was required, as a pledge of his 
sincerity, to place in the hands of the Protest- 
ants eight fortified cities. The Reformers were 
permitted to conduct public worship unmolested 
in those places only where it was practiced at 
the time of signing the treaty. In other parts 
of France they were allowed to retain their be- 
lief without persecution, but they were not per- 
mitted to meet in any worshiping assemblies. 
But even these pledges, confirmed by the Edict 



194 King Henry IV. [1597. 

Morality in France. Disgraceful fete. 

of Poitiers on the 8tli of October, 1597, were 
speedily broken, like all the rest. 

But in the midst of all these conflicts, while 
every province in France was convulsed with 
civil war, the king, reckless of the woes of his 
subjects, rioted in all voluptuous dissipation. 
He was accustomed to exhibit himself to his 
court in those effeminate pageants in which he 
found his only joy, dressed in the flaunting robes 
of a gay woman, with his bosom open and a 
string of pearls encircling his neck. On one 
occasion he gave a fete, when, for the excitement 
of novelty, the gentlemen, in female robes, were 
waited upon by the ladies of the court, who were 
dressed in male attire, or rather undressed, for 
their persons were veiled by the slightest pos- 
sible clothing. Such was the corruption of the 
court of France, and, indeed, of nearly the whole 
realm in those days of darkness. Domestic pu- 
rity was a virtue unknown. Law existed only 
in name. The rich committed any crimes with- 
out fear of molestation. In the royal palace 
itself, one of the favorites of the king, in a par- 
oxysm of anger, stabbed his wife and her wait- 
ing-maid while the unfortunate lady was dress- 
ing. No notice whatever was taken of this 
bloody deed. The murderer retained all his 



Death of Chaeles IX. 195 

Murder in the royal palace. 

offices and honors, and it was the general senti- 
ment of the people of France that the assassi- 
nation was committed by the order of the sov- 
ereign, because the lady refused to be entirely 
subservient to the wishes of the dissolute king. 



196 King Heney IV. 



Formation of the league. 



Chaptee VIIL 
The League. 

ABOUT this time there was formed the 
celebrated league which occupies so con- 
spicuous a position in the history of the six- 
teenth century. Henry III., though conscious 
that his throne was trembling beneath him, and 
courting now the Catholics and again the Prot- 
estants, was still amusing himself, day after day, 
with the most contemptible and trivial vices. 
The extinction of the house of Yalois was evi- 
dently and speedily approaching. Henry of 
Navarre, calm, sagacious, and energetic, was ral- 
lying around him all the Protestant influences 
of Europe, to sustain, in that event, his undeni- 
able claim to the throne. The Duke of Guise, 
impetuous and fearless, hoped, in successful 
usurpation, to grasp the rich prize by rallying 
around his banner all the fanatic energies of 
Catholic Europe. 

Henry III. was alike despised by Catholics 
and Protestants. His brother Francis, though 
far more impulsive, had but few traits of char- 



The League. 197 

Politics in the pulpit. The League. 

acter to command respect. He could summon 
but a feeble band for his support. Henry of 
Guise was the available candidate for the Cath- 
olics. All the priestly influences of France were 
earnestly combined to advance his claims. They 
declared that Henry of Navarre had forfeited 
every shadow of right to the succession by be- 
ing a heretic. The genealogy of the illustrious 
house of Guise was blazoned forth, and its de- 
scent traced from Charlemagne. It was assert- 
ed, and argued in the pulpit and in the camp, 
that even the house of Yalois had usurped the 
crown which by right belonged to the house of 
Guise. 

Under these circumstances, the most formida- 
ble secret society was organized the world has 
ever known. It assumed the name of The 
League. Its object was to exterminate Prot- 
estantism, and to place the Duke of Guise upon 
the throne. The following are, in brief, its cov- 
enant and oath : 

THE LEAGUE. 

In the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost, this League of Catholic 
princes, lords, and gentlemen shall be instituted 
to maintain the holy Catholic, apostolical, and 



198 King Henry IV. 

Object of the League. The oath. 

Roman Church, abjuring all errors to the con- 
trary. Should opposition to this league arise 
in any quarter, the associates shall employ all 
their goods and means, and even their own per- 
sons unto death, to punish and hunt down those 
opposing. Should any of the Leaguers, their 
associates or friends, be molested, the members 
of the League shall be bound to employ their 
bodies, goods, and means to inflict vengeance 
upon those thus offending. Should any Leaguer, 
after having taken the oath, withdraw from the 
association under any pretext whatever, the re- 
fractory member shall be injured, in body and 
goods, in every manner which can be devised, 
as enemies of God, rebels, and disturbers of the 
public peace. The Leaguers shall swear im- 
plicit obedience to their chief, and shall aid by 
counsel and service in preserving the League, 
and in the ruin of all who oppose it. All Cath- 
olic towns and villages shall be summoned se- 
cretly, by their several governors, to enter into 
this League, and to furnish arms and men for its 
execution. 

OATH. 

I swear by God the Creator, touching the 
Evangelists, and upon the pain of eternal dam- 



The League. 199 

Influence of the League. Its extension. 

nation, that I have entered into this holy Cath- 
olic League loyally and sincerely, either to com- 
mand, to obey, or to serve. I promise, upon 
my life and honor, to remain in this League to 
the last drop of my blood, without opposing or 
retiring upon any pretext whatever. 

Such was the character of secret societies in 
the sixteenth century. A more atrocious con- 
federacy than this the human mind could hard- 
ly have conceived. It was, however, peculiarly 
calculated to captivate the multitude in those 
days of darkness and blood. Though at first 
formed and extended secretly, it spread like 
wildfire through all the cities and provinces of 
France. Princes, lords, gentlemen, artisans, 
and peasants rushed into its impious inclosures. 
The benighted populace, enthralled by the su- 
perstitions of the Church, were eager to mani- 
fest their zeal for God by wreaking the most 
awful vengeance upon heretics. He who, for 
any cause, declined entering the League, found 
himself exposed to every possible annoyance. 
His house and his barns blazed in midnight 
conflagrations; his cattle were mutilated and 
slain ; his wife and children were insulted and 
stoned in the streets. By day and by night. 



200 King Henry IV. 

Vast power of the League. Alarm of the Protestants. 

asleep and awake, at home and abroad, at all 
times and every where, he was annoyed by ev- 
ery conceivable form of injury and violence. 

Soon the League became so powerful that no 
farther secrecy was needful. It stalked abroad 
in open day, insulting its foes and vaunting its 
invincibility. The gigantic plan it unblushing- 
ly avowed was to exterminate Protestantism by 
lire and the sword from France ; then to drown 
it in blood in Holland ; then to turn to England 
and purify that kingdom from the taint of her- 
esy ; then to march upon Germany ; and thus 
to. advance from kingdom to kingdom, in their 
holy crusade, until Protestantism should be ev- 
ery where ingulfed in blood and flame, and the 
whole of Europe should be again brought back 
to the despotism of Rome. 

The Duke of Guise was the soul of this mam- 
moth conspiracy, though Philip II., the bigoted 
King of Spain, was its recorded commander-in- 
chief. The Protestants were justly alarmed by 
the enormous energy of the new power thus sud- 
denly evoked against them. The Pope, though 
at first hostile, soon, with his cardinals, espoused 
the cause of the League, and consecrated to its 
support all the weapons which could be wielded 
by the Vatican. From France, the demoniac 



The League. 201 



Adroit measures of Henry III. 



organization spread through all the kingdoms of 
Europe. Hundreds of thousands were arrayed 
beneath its crimson banner. Even Henry HI. 
in the Louvre, surrounded by his parasites and 
his concubines, trembled as he saw the shadow 
of this fearful apparition darkening his court. 

He immediately perceived that he must mount 
the car or be crushed by it. Adroitly he leap- 
ed into the seat of the charioteer and seized the 
reins. The demands of the League he adopted 
as his own, and urged them with energy. He 
issued a proclamation commending the League 
to his subjects, and announcing that he, to set 
them an example, had signed its covenant and 
its oath. The Duke of Guise and his followers 
were quite bewildered by this unexpected step. 

The League had demanded the assembling 
of the States-General, a body somewhat resem- 
bling the Congress of the United States. The 
king immediately summoned them to meet. 
They declared war against the Protestants. The 
king adopted the declaration as his own decree, 
and called loudly for supplies to prosecute the 
war with vigor. He outleagued the most vio- 
lent of the Leaguers in denunciations of the Prot- 
estants, in declaring that but one religion should 
be tolerated in France, and in clamoring for 



202 King Henry IV. 

Embarrassment of the Leaguers. Excommunication of Henry IV, 

arms and munitions of war, that heresy might 
be utterly extirpated. The Leaguers thus found, 
to their great perplexity, the weapon which they 
had forged wrested from their hands and wield- 
ed against them. They had organized to drive 
the imbecile Henry III. from the throne. He 
had seized upon that organization, and was us- 
ing it to establish himself more firmly there. 

The situation of Henry of Navarre was now 
extremely critical. Pope Sextus V., besides 
giving the League his Papal blessing, had ful- 
minated against the King of Navarre the awful 
thunders of excommunication. 

The bull of excommunication was exceeding- 
ly coarse and vulgar in its denunciatory terms, 
calling the King of Navarre " this bastard and 
detestable jprogeny of Bourbons.'''' 

Henry replied to this assault in accents in- 
trepid and resolute, which caused Catholic Eu- 
rope to stand aghast. 

"Henry," said this bold document, "by the 
grace of God King of Navarre, sovereign prince 
of Beam, first peer and prince of France, resists 
the declaration and excommunication of Sextus 
Y., self-styled Pope of Rome, asserts it to be 
false, and maintains that Mr. Sextus, the self- 
styled Pope, has falsely and maliciously lied; 



1585.] The Leag^ue. 203 

Bold retort. Edict of Nemours. 

that he himself is heretic^ which he will prove 
in any full and free council lawfully assembled ; 
to which if he do not consent and submit, as he 
is bound by the canons, he, the King of Na- 
varre, holds and pronounces him to be anti- 
Christ and heretic, and in that quality declares 
against him perpetual and irreconcilable war." 

This energetic protest was placarded in most 
of the towns of France, and by some fearless fol- 
lowers of the prince was even attached to the 
walls of the Vatican. The Pope, though at first 
much irritated, had the magnanimity to express 
his admiration of the spirit manifested by Henry. 

" There are but two princes in Europe," said 
he, " to whom I could venture to communicate 
the grand schemes revolving in my mind, Hen- 
ry of Navarre and Elizabeth of England ; but, 
unfortunately, they are both heretics." 

Henry III., having no moral principles to 
guide him in any thing, and having no generous 
affections of any kind, in carrying out his plan 
of wielding the energies of the League without 
any scruples of conscience, issued the infamous 
Edict of Nemours in 1585, which commanded 
every Protestant minister to leave the kingdom 
within one month, and every member of the Re- 
formed faith either to abjure his religion and ac- 



204 King Henry IV. 

Anguish of Henry of Navarre. Death of Francis. 

cept the Catholic faith, or to depart from France 
within six months. The penalty for disobedi- 
ence in either of these cases was death and the 
confiscation of property. This edict was exe- 
cuted with great rigor, and many were burned 
at the stake. 

Henry of Navarre was amazed, and, for a 
time, overwhelmed in receiving the news of this 
atrocious decree. He clearly foresaw that it 
must arouse France and all Europe to war, and 
that a new Iliad of woes was to commence. 
Leaning his chin upon his hand, he was for a 
long time lost in profound reverie as he pon- 
dered the awful theme. It is said that his an- 
guish was so intense, that when he removed his 
hand his beard and mustache on that side were 
turned entirely gray. 

But Henry rose with the emergence, and met 
the crisis with a degree of energy and magna- 
nimity which elicited, in those barbarous times, 
the admiration even of his enemies. The Prot- 
estants heroically grasped their arms and ral- 
lied together for mutual protection. War, with 
all its horrors, was immediately resumed. 

Affairs were in this condition when Francis, 
the Duke of Anjou, was taken sick and sudden- 
ly died. This removed another obstruction from 



The League. 205 

Redoubled energies. Toleration. 

the field, and tended to hasten the crisis. Hen- 
ry III. was feeble, exhausted, and childless. 
Worn out by shameless dissipation, it was ev- 
ident to all that he must soon sink into his 
grave. Who was to be his successor? This 
was the question, above all others, which agi- 
tated France and Europe. Henry of Navarre 
was, beyond all question, legitimately entitled 
to the throne ; but he was, in the estimation of 
France, a heretic. The League consequently, 
in view of the impending peril of having a Prot- 
estant king, redoubled its energies to exclude 
him, and to enthrone their bigoted partisan, 
Henry of Guise. It was a terrific struggle. 
The Protestants saw suspended upon its issue 
their property, their religious liberty, their lives, 
their earthly all. The Catholics were stimu- 
lated by all the energies of fanaticism in de- 
fense of the Church. All Catholic Europe es- 
poused the one side, all Protestant Europe the 
other. One single word was enough to arrest 
all these woes. That word was Toleration. 
When Henry III. published his famous Edict 
of Nemours, commanding the conversion, the 
expulsion, or the death of the Protestants, Hen- 
ry of Navarre issued another edict replying to 
the calumnies of the League, and explaining his 



206 KiNCx Henry IV. 

The challenge. Efforts to raise an army. 

actions and liis motives. Then adopting a step 
cliaracteristic of the chivalry of the times, he 
dispatched a challenge to the Duke of Guise, 
defying him to single combat, or, if he objected 
to that, to a combat of two with two, ten with 
ten, or a hundred with a hundred. 

"In this challenge," said Henry, "I call 
Heaven to witness that I am not influenced by 
any spirit of bravado, but only by the desire of 
deciding a quarrel which will otherwise cost the 
lives of thousands." 

To this appeal the duke made no reply. It 
was by no means for his interest to meet on 
equal terms those whom he could easily out- 
number two or three to one. 

Though the situation of Henry of Navarre 
seemed now almost desperate, he maintained 
his courage and his hope unshaken. His es- 
tates were unhesitatingly sold to raise funds. 
His friends parted with their jewels for gold to 
obtain the means to carry on the war. But, 
with his utmost efforts, he could raise an army 
of but four or five thousand men to resist two 
armies of twenty thousand each, headed by the 
Duke of Guise and by his brother, the Duke of 
Mayenne. Fortunately for Henry, there was 
but little military capacity in the League, and, 



The League. 207 



The Leaguers baffled. The hostile meeting. 

notwithstanding their vast superiority in num- 
bers, they were continually circumvented in all 
their plans by the energy and the valor of the 
Protestants. 

The King of France was secretly rejoiced at 
the discomfiture of the Leaguers, yet, expressing 
dissatisfaction with the Duke of Guise, he in- 
trusted the command of the armies to one of his 
petted favorites, Joyeuse, a rash and fearless 
youth, who was as prompt to revel in the car- 
nage of the battle-field as in the voluptuousness 
of the palace. The king knew not whether to 
choose victory or defeat for his favorite. Vic- 
tory would increase the influence and the renown 
of one strongly attached to him, and would thus 
enable him more successfully to resist the en- 
croachments of the Duke of Guise. Defeat 
would weaken the overbearing power of the 
Leaguers, and enable Henry III. more securely 
to retain his position by the balance of the two 
rival parties. Joyeuse, ardent and inexperi- 
enced, and despising the feeble band he was to 
encounter, was eager to display his prowess. He 
pressed eagerly to assail the King of Navarre. 
The two armies met upon a battle-field a few 
leagues from Bordeaux. The army of Joyeuse 
was chiefly of gay and efleminate courtiers and 



208 King Heney IV. [1589. 

Appearance of the two armies. The charge. 

young nobles, wlio had too much pride to lack 
courage, but who possessed but little physical 
vigor, and who were quite unused to the hard- 
ships and to the vicissitudes of war. 

On the morning of the 20th of October, 1589, 
as the sun rose over the hills of Perigord, the 
two armies were facing each other upon the plains 
of Coutras. The Leaguers were decked with un- 
usual splendor, and presented a glittering array, 
with gorgeous banners and waving plumes, and 
uniforms of satin and velvet embroidered by the 
hands of the ladies of the court. They num- 
bered twelve thousand men. Henry of Navarre, 
with admirable military skill, had posted his six 
thousand hardy peasants, dressed in tattered 
skins, to meet the onset. 

And now occurred one of the most extraor- 
dinary scenes which history has recorded. It 
was a source of constant grief to the devout 
Protestant leaders that Henry of Navarre, not- 
withstanding his many noble traits of character, 
was not a man of pure morality. Just before 
the battle, Du Plessis, a Christian and a hero, 
approached the King of ISTavarre and said, 

" Sire, it is known to all that you have sin- 
ned against God, and injured a respectable citi- 
zen of Roclielle by the seduction of his daugh- 



The League. 209 

Penitence of Henry of Navan-c. Exoraordinary scene. 

ter. We can not hope that God will bless oiu' 
arms in this approaching battle while such a 
sin remains unrepented of and unrepaired." 

The king dismounted from his horse, and, un- 
covering his head, avowed in the presence of the 
whole army his sincere grief for what he had 
done ; he called all to witness that he thus pub- 
licly implored forgiveness of God, and of the 
family he had injured, and he pledged his word 
that he would do every thing in his power to re- 
pair the wrong. 

The troops were then called to prayers by the 
ministers. Every man in the ranks fell upon 
his knees, while one of the clergy implored God 
to forgive the sin of their chieftain, and to grant 
them protection and victory. 

The strange movement was seen from the 
Catholic camp. "By death," exclaimed Joy- 
euse, "the poltroons are frightened. Look! 
they kneel, imploring our mercy." 

"Do not deceive yourself," replied an old cap- 
tain. "When the Huguenots get into that po- 
sition, they are ready for hard fighting." 

The brilliant battalions of the enemy now be - 
gan to deploy. Some one spoke of the splendor 
of their arms. Henry smiled and replied, "We 
shall have the better aim when the fight begins," 

O 



210 King Heney IV. 

The Ibattle of Coutras. 

Another ventured to intimate that the ministers 
had rebuked him with needless severity. He 
replied, "We can not be too humble before God, 
nor too brave before men." Then turning to 
his followers, with tears in his eyes, he address- 
ed to them a short and noble speech. He de- 
plored the calamities of war, and solemnly de- 
clared that he had drawn arms only in self-de- 
fense. "Let them," said he, "perish who are 
the authors of this war. May the blood shed 
this day rest upon them alone." 

To his two prominent generals, the Prince of 
Conde and the Count de Soissons, he remarked, 
with a smile, "To you I shall say nothing but 
that you are of the house of Bourbon, and, please 
God, I will show you this day that I am your 
elder." 

The battle almost immediately ensued. Like 
all fierce fights, it was for a time but a delirious 
scene of horror, confusion, and carnage. But 
the Protestants, with sinewy arms, hewed down 
their effeminate foes, and with infantry and cav- 
alry swept to and fro resis ties sly over the plain. 
The white plume of Henry of ISTavarre was ever 
seen waving in the tumultuous throng wherever 
the battle was waged the fiercest. 

There was a singular blending of the facetious 



The League. 211 

The victory. Exultation of the troops. 

with the horrible in this sanguinary scene. Be- 
fore the battle, the Protestant preachers, in earn- 
est sermons, had compared Hemy with David 
at the head of the Lord's chosen people. In the 
midst of the bloody fray, when the field was cov- 
ered with the dying and the dead, Henry grap- 
pled one of the standard-bearers of the enemy. 
At the moment, humorously reminded of the 
flattering comparison of the preachers, he shout- 
ed, with waggery which even the excitement of 
the battle could not repress, 

"Surrender, you un circumcised Philistine." 
In the course of one hour three thousand of 
the Leaguers were weltering in blood upon the 
plain, Joyeuse himself, their leader, being among 
the dead. The defeat of the Catholics was so 
entire that not more than one fourth of their 
number escaped from the field of Coutras. 

The victors were immediately assembled upon 
the bloody field, and, after prayers and thanks- 
giving, they sung, with exultant lips, 

"The Lord appears my helper now, 
Nor is my faith afraid 
What all the sons of earth can do, 
Since Heaven affords its aid." 

Henry was very magnanimous in the hour 
of victory. When some one asked what terms 



212 King Henry IV. 

Magnanimity of Henry of Navarre. Oonduct of Margncrite. 

he should now demand, after so great a discom- 
riture of his foes, he replied, '-^The same as be- 
fore the battle.'''' 

In reading the records of these times, one is 
surprised to see how mirth, festivity, and mag- 
nificence are blended with blood, misery, and 
despair. War was desolating France with woes 
which to thousands of families must have made 
existence a curse, and yet amid these scenes 
we catch many glimpses of merriment and gay- 
ety. At one time we see Henry III. weeping 
and groaning upon his bed in utter wretched- 
ness, and again he appears before us reveling 
with his dissolute companions in the wildest ca- 
rousals. While Henry of Navarre was strug- 
gling with his foes upon the field of battle. Mar- 
guerite, his wife, was dancing and flirting with 
congenial paramours amid all the guilty pleas- 
ures of the court. Henry wrote repeatedly for 
her to come and join him, but she vastly pre- 
ferred the voluptuousness of the capital to the 
gloom and the hardships of the Protestant camp. 
She never loved her husband, and while she 
wished that he might triumph, and thus confer 
upon her the illustrious rank of the Queen of 
France, she still rejoiced in his absence, as it 
allowed her that perfect freeclom which she de- 



The League. 213 

Court of Henry of Navarre. Censure by the clergj-. 

sired. When slie saw indications of approach- 
ing peace, she was so apprehensive that she 
might thus be placed under constraint by the 
presence of her husband, that she did what she 
could to perpetuate civil war. 

It will be remembered that several of the for- 
tified cities of France were in the hands of the 
Protestants. Henry of I^avarre held his com- 
paratively humble court in the town of Agen, 
where he was very mnch beloved and respect- 
ed by the inhabitants. Though far from irre- 
proachable in his morals, the purity of his court 
was infinitely superior to that of Henry III. and 
his mother Catharine. Henry of Navarre was, 
however, surrounded by a body of gay and light- 
hearted young noblemen, whose mirth-loving 
propensities and whose often indecorous festiv- 
ities he could not control. One evening, at a 
general ball, these young gentlemen extinguish- 
ed the lights, and in the darkness a scene of 
much scandal ensued. Henry was severely 
censured by the Protestant clergy, and by many 
others of his friends, for not holding the mem- 
bers of his court in more perfect control. His 
popularity suffered so severely from this occur- 
rence, that it even became necessary for Henry 
to withdraw his court from the town. 



214 King Henky IV. 

The flying squadron. Intrigue and gallantry. 

Catharine and Marguerite, accompanied by a 
retinue of the most vohiptuously-beautiful girls 
of France, set out to visit the court of Hemy 
of Navarre, which had been transferred to JSTe- 
ruc. Henry, hearing of their approach, placed 
himself at the head of five hundred gentlemen, 
and hastened to meet his mother-in-law and his 
wife, with their characteristic and congenial 
train. These were the instrumentalities with 
which Catharine and Marguerite hoped to bend 
the will of Henry and his friends to suit their 
purposes. Catharine had great confidence in 
the potency of the influence which these pliant 
maidens could wield, and they were all instruct- 
ed in the part which they were to act. She 
was accustomed to call these allies Ihqx flying 
sqyiadron. 

There then ensued a long series of negotia- 
tions, intermingled with mirth, gallantry, and 
intrigue, but the result of which was a treaty 
highly conducive to the interests of the Protest- 
ants. Various places were designated where 
their religion should be freely tolerated, and in 
which they were to be allowed to build conven- 
ticles. They were also permitted to raise mon- 
ey for the support of their ministers, and four- 
teen cities were surrendered to their government. 



The League. 215 



Influences used by Catharine. La Reole. 

Several incidents occurred during tiiese negoti- 
ations very cliaracteristic of tlie corrupt man- 
ners of tlie times. 

Marguerite devoted herself most energetical- 
ly to the promotion of the success of Henry's 
plans. Catharine found herself, notwithstand- 
ing all her artifice, and all the peculiar seduc- 
tions of her female associates, completely foiled 
by the sagacity and the firmness of Henry. She 
had brought with her Monsieur de Pibrac, a man 
very celebrated for his glowing eloquence and 
for his powers of persuasion. The oratory of 
Pibrac, combined with the blandishments of the 
ladies, were those co-operative influences which 
the queen imagined none would be able to re- 
sist. Marguerite, however, instructed in the 
school of Catharine, succeeded in obtaining en- 
tire control over the mind of Pibrac himself, and 
he became a perfect tool in her hands. Catha- 
rine, thus foiled, was compelled to grant far more 
favorable terms to the Protestants than she had 
contemplated. 

La Eeole was one of the towns of security 
surrendered to the Protestants. There was, 
however, so little of good faith in that day, that, 
notwithstanding the pledge of honor, possession 
of the place could only be retained by vigilance. 



216 King Heney IV. 

Treachery of Ussac. News of the loss of La Reole. 

The government of the town had been conferred 
upon a veteran Protestant general by the name 
of Ussac. His days, from early youth, had been 
passed on fields of battle. He was now far ad- 
vanced in years, in feeble health, and dreadful- 
ly disfigured by wounds received in the face. 
One of the most fascinating of the ladies of the 
queen-mother lavished such endearments upon 
the old man, already in his dotage, that he lost 
his principles and all self-control, and made 
himself very ridiculous by assuming the airs of 
a young lover. Henry had the imprudence to 
join in the mockery with which the court re- 
garded his tenderness. This was an indignity 
which an old man could never forget. Insti- 
gated by his beautiful seducer, he became en- 
tirely unmindful of those principles of honor 
which had embellished his life, and in revenge 
invited a Koman Catholic general to come and 
take possession of the town. 

Henry was informed of this act of treachery 
while dancing at a very brilliant entertainment 
given in his palace. He quietly whispered to 
Turenne, Sully, and a few others of his most 
intimate friends, requesting them to escape from 
the room, gather around them such armed men 
as they could, and join him at a rendezvous in 



The League. 217 

The recapture. Precarious peace. 

the country. Tliej all stole unperceived from 
the mirthful party, concealed their swords be- 
neath their cloaks, traveled all night, and ar- 
rived, just as the day began to dawn, before the 
gates of the city. They found the place, as 
they had expected, entirely unprepared for such 
a sudden attack, and, rushing in, regained it 
without difficulty. The Catholic soldiers re- 
treated to the castle, where they held out a few 
days, and many of them perished in the assault 
by which it was soon taken. 

Such was the character of the nominal peace 
which now existed. A partisan warfare was 
still continued throughout France. Catharine 
and her maids did every thing in their power to 
excite dissensions between the Protestant lead- 
ers. In this they succeeded so well that the 
Prince of Conde became so exasperated against 
Turenne as to challenge him to single combat. 

Such a peace as we have above described 
could not, of course, be lasting. Both parties 
were soon again gathering all their forces for 
war. There is a tedious monotony in the re- 
cital of the horrors of battle. Cities bombard- 
ed, and sacked, and burned ; shells exploding 
in the cradle of infancy and in the chambers of 
mothers and maidens ; mutilated bodies tram- 



218 King Henry IV. 



Attempt to assassinate Henry. 



pled beneath the hoofs of horses ; the cry of 
the maddened onset, the shrieks of the wound- 
ed, and the groans of the dying ; the despair of 
the widow and the orphan ; smouldering ruins 
of once happy homes ; the fruits of the hus- 
bandman's toils trodden into the mire ; starva- 
tion, misery, and death — these are ever the fruits 
of war. 

During the short interval of peace, many at- 
tempts had been made to assassinate Henry of 
Navarre by the partisans of the Duke of Guise. 
Henry was, one fine morning, setting out with a 
few friends for a ride of pleasure. Just as the 
party were leaving the court-yard, he was in- 
formed that an assassin, very powerfully mount- 
ed, was prepared to meet him on the way and 
to take his life. Henry apparently paid no 
heed to the warning, but rode along conversing 
gayly with his friends. They soon met, in a 
retired part of the way, a stranger, armed ac- 
cording to the custom of the times, and mount- 
ed upon a very magnificent steed, which had 
been prepared for him to facilitate his escape 
after the accomplishment of the fell deed. Hen- 
ry immediately rode up to the assassin, address- 
ed him in terms of great familiarity and cordi- 
ality, and, professing to admire the beautiful 



The League. 219 



The assassin humiliated. 



charger upon which he was mounted, requested 
him to dismount, that he might try the splendid 
animal. The man, bewildered, obeyed the wish- 
es of the king, when Henry leaped into the sad- 
dle, and, seizing the two loaded pistols at the 
saddle-bow, looked the man sternly in the eye, 
and said, 

" I am told that you seek to kill me. You 
are now in my power, and I could easily put 
you to death ; but I will not harm you." 

He then discharged the two pistols in the 
air, and permitted the humiliated man to mount 
his horse and ride away unharmed. 



220 King Heney IV. 

Imbecility of the king. Haughtiness of the Duke of Guise. 



Chaptee IX. 

The Assassination of the Duke 
OF Guise and of Heney III. 

^HE war, again resumed, was fiercely prose- 
cuted. Hemy III. remained most of the 
time in the gilded saloons of the Louvre, irrita- 
ble and wretched, and yet incapable of any con- 
tinued efficient exertion. Many of the zealous 
Leaguers, indignant at the pusillanimity he dis- 
played, urged the Duke of Guise to dethrone 
Henry III. by violence, and openly to declare 
himself King of France. They assured him 
that the nation would sustain him by their arms. 
But the duke was not prepared to enter upon so 
bold a measure, as he hoped that the death of 
the king would soon present to him a far more 
favorable opportunity for the assumption of the 
throne. Henry III. was in constant fear that 
the duke, whose popularity in France was almost 
boundless, might supplant him, and he therefore 
forbade him to approach the metropolis. 

Notwithstanding this prohibition,the haughty 
duke, accompanied by a small party of his in- 



The Assassination. 221 

The duke goes to Paris. 

trepid followers, as if to pay court to liis sover- 
eign, boldly entered the city. The populace of 
the capital, ever ripe for excitement and insur- 
rection, greeted him with boundless enthusiasm. 
Thousands thronged the broad streets through 
which he passed with a small but brilliant ret- 
inue. Ladies crowded the windows, waving 
scarfs, cheering him with smiles, and showering 
flowers at his feet. The cry resounded along 
the streets, penetrating even the apartments of 
the Louvre, and falling appallingly upon the ear 
of the king : 

' ' Welcome — welcome, great duke. Now you 
are come, we are safe." 

Henry III. was amazed and terrified by this 
insolence of his defiant subject. In bewilder- 
ment, he asked those about him what he should 
do. 

" Give me the word," said a colonel of his 
guard, " and I will plunge my sword through 
his body." 

" Smite the shepherd," added one of the 
king's spiritual counselors, "and the sheep will 
disperse." 

But Henry feared to exasperate the populace 
of Paris by the assassination of a noble so pow- 
erful and so popular. In the midst of this con- 



222 King Heney IV. 

Interview with the king. 

sultation, the Duke of Guise, accompanied by 
the queen-mother Catharine, whom he had first 
called upon, entered the Louvre, and, passing- 
through the numerous body-guard of the king, 
whom he saluted with much affability, present- 
ed himself before the feeble monarch. The 
king looked sternly upon him, and, without any 
word of greeting, exclaimed angrily, 

" Did I not forbid you to enter Paris ?" 

" Sire," the duke replied, firmly, but with af- 
fected humility, " I came to demand justice, 
and to reply to the accusations of my enemies." 

The interview was short and unrelenting. 
The king, exasperated almost beyond endur- 
ance, very evidently hesitated whether to give 
the signal for the immediate execution of his 
dreaded foe. There were those at his side, with 
arms in their hands, who were eager instantly 
to obey his bidding. The Duke of Guise per- 
ceived the imminence of his danger, and, feigning 
sudden indisposition, immediately retired. In 
Lis own almost regal mansion he gathered 
around him his followers and his friends, and 
thus placed himself in a position where even 
the arm of the sovereign could not venture to 
touch him. 

There were now in Paris, as it were, two ri- 



The Assassination. 223 

Two rival courts. The Swiss guard defeated. 

val courts, emulating each other in splendor and 
power. The one was that of the king at the 
Louvre the other was that of the duke in his 
palace. It was rumored that the duke was or- 
ganizing a conspiracy to arrest the king and 
hold him a captive. Henry III., to strengthen 
his body-guard, called a strong force of Swiss 
mercenaries into the city. The retainers of the 
duke, acting under the secret instigation of their 
chieftain, roused the populace of Paris to resist 
the Swiss. Barricades were immediately con- 
structed by filling barrels with stones and earth ; 
chains were stretched across the streets from 
house to house ; and organized bands, armed 
with pikes and muskets, threatened even the 
gates of the Louvre. 

A conflict soon ensued, and the Swiss guard 
were defeated by the mob at every point. The 
Duke of Guise, though he secretly guided all 
these movements, remained in his palace, affect- 
ing to have no share in the occurrences. Night 
came. Confusion and tumult rioted in the city. 
The insurgent populace, intoxicated and mad- 
dened, swarmed around the walls of the palace, 
and the king was besieged. The spiritless and 
terrified monarch, disguising himself in humble 
garb, crept to his stables, mounted a fleet horse, 



224 King Heney IV. 

Tumult in the city. Dignity of Achille de Harlai. 

and fled from the city. Riding at full speed, 
he sought refuge in Chartres, a walled town for- 
ty miles southeast of Paris. 

The flight of the king before an insurgent 
populace was a great victory to the duke. He 
was thus left in possession of the metropolis 
■"ithout any apparent act of rebellion on his 
own part, and it became manifestly his duty to 
do all in his power to preserve order in the cap- 
ital thus surrendered to anarchy. The duke 
had ever been the idol of the populace, but now 
nearly the whole population of Paris, and es- 
pecially the influential citizens, looked to him 
as their only protector. 

Some, however, with great heroism, still ad- 
hered to the cause of the king. The Duke of 
Guise sent for Achille de Harlai, President of 
the Council, and endeavored to win him over to 
his cause, that he might thus sanction his usur- 
pation by legal forms ; but De Harlai, fixing his 
eyes steadfastly upon the duke, fearlessly' said. 

" 'Tis indeed pitiable when the valet expels 
his master. As for me, my soul belongs to my 
Maker, and my fidelity belongs to the king. 
My body alone is in the hands of the wicked. 
You talk of assembling the Parliament. When 
tlie majesty of the prince is violated, the magis- 



The Assassination. 225 

Measures adopted by the duke. 

trate is without authority." The intrepid pres- 
ident was seized and imprisoned. 

The followers of Henry III. soon gathered 
around him at Chartres, and he fortified him- 
self strongly there. The Duke of Guise, though 
still protesting great loyalty, immediately as- 
sumed at Paris the authority of a sovereign. 
He assembled around him strong military forces, 
professedly to protect the capital from disturb- 
ance. For a month or two negotiations were 
conducted between the two parties for a com- 
promise, each fearing the other too much to ap- 
peal to the decisions of the sword. At last 
Henry III. agreed to appoint the Duke of Guise 
lieutenant general of France and high consta- 
ble of the kingdom. He also, while pledging 
himself anew to wage a war of extermination 
against the Protestants, promised to bind the 
people of France, by an oath, to exclude from 
the succession to the throne all persons suspect- 
ed even of Protestantism. This would effect- 
ually cut off the hopes of Henry of Navarre, 
and secure the crown to the Duke of Guise upon 
the death of the king. 

Both of the antagonists now pretended to a 
sincere reconciliation, and Henry, having re- 
ceived Guise at Chartres with open arms, re- 

P 



226 King Henry IV. 

Endeavors to obtain an assassin. The king at Blois. 

turned to Paris, meditating how he might secure 
the death of his dreaded and powerful rival. 
Imprisonment was not to be thought of, for no 
fortress in France could long hold one so idol- 
ized by the populace. The king applied in per- 
son to one of his friends, a brave and honest sol- 
dier by the name of Crillon, to assassinate the 
duke. 

"I am not an executioner," the soldier proud- 
ly replied, " and the function does not become 
my rank. But I will challenge the duke to 
open combat, and will cheerfully sacrifice my 
life that I may take his." 

This plan not meeting with the views of the 
king, he applied to one of the commanders of 
his guard named Lorgnac. This man had no 
scruples, and with alacrity undertook to perform 
the deed. Henry, having retired to the castle 
of Blois, about one hundred miles south of Par- 
is, arranged all the details, while he was daily, 
with the most consummate hypocrisy, receiv- 
ing his victim with courteous words and smiles. 
The king summoned a council to attend him in 
his cabinet at Blois on the 23d of December. 
It was appointed at an early hour, and the Duke 
of Guise attended without his usual retinue. He 
had been repeatedly warned to guard against the 
treachery of Henry, but his reply was. 



The Assassination. 229/ 

Assassination of the Duke of Guise. 

"I do not know that man on earth who, 
hand to hand with me, would not have his full 
share of fear. Besides, I am always so well 
attended that it would not be easy to find me 
off my guard." 

The duke arrived at the door of the cabinet 
after passing through long files of the king's 
body-guard. Just as he was raising the tapes- 
try which veiled the entrance, Lorgnac sprang 
upon him and plunged a dagger into his throat. 
Others immediately joined in the assault, and 
the duke dropped, pierced with innumerable 
wounds, dead upon the floor. 

Henry, hearing the noise and knowing well 
what it signified, very coolly stepped from his 
cabinet into the ante -chamber, and, looking 
calmly upon the bloody corpse, said, 

" Do you think he is dead, Lorgnac?" 

"Yes, sire," Lorgnac replied, "he looks like 
it." 

"Good God, how tall he is !" said the king. 
"He seems taller dead than when he was liv- 
ing." Then giving the gory body a kick, he 
exclaimed, "Venomous beast, thou shalt cast 
forth no more venom." 

In the same manner the duke had treated the 
remains of the noble Admiral Coligni, a solemn 



230 King Henry IY. 

Interview between the king and Catharine. 

comment upon the declaration, "With what 
measure ye mete it shall be measured to you 
again." 

Cardinal Guise, the brother of the duke, was 
immediately arrested by order of the king, and 
sent to prison, where he was assassinated. Hen- 
ry III. soon after repaired to the bedside of 
Catharine his mother, who was lying sick in 
one of the chambers of the castle. Nothing can 
show more clearly the character of the times 
and of the personages than the following la- 
conic dialogue which ensued : 

" How do you do, mother, this morning ?" 
inquired the king. 

" I am better than I have been," she replied. 

"So am I," Henry rejoined, gayly, "for I 
have made myself this morning King of France 
by putting to death the King of Paris." 

" Take care," this hardened woman exclaim- 
ed, "that you do not soon find jowcseif kin^ 
of nothing. Diligence and resolution are now 
absolutely necessary for you." 

She then turned upon her pillow without the 
slightest apparent emotion. In twelve days from 
this time, this wretched queen, deformed by ev- 
ery vice, without one single redeeming virtue, 
breathed her last, seventy years of age. She 



The Assassination. 231 



Indignation of the League. Anathemas against the king. 

was despised by the Catholics, and hated by 
the Protestants. 

These acts of violence and crime roused the 
League to the most intense energy. The mur- 
der of the Duke of Guise, and especially the 
murder of his brother, a cardinal in the Church, 
were acts of impiety which no atonement could 
expiate. Though Henry was a Catholic, and 
all his agents in these atrocious murders were 
Catholics, the death of the Duke of Guise in- 
creased vastly the probability that Protestant 
influences might become dominant at court. 
The Pope issued a bull of excommunication 
against all who should advocate the cause of 
Henry III. The Sorbonne published a decree 
declaring that the king had forfeited all right to 
the obedience of his subjects, and justifying 
them in taking up arms against him. The cler- 
gy, from the pulpit, refused communion, abso- 
lution, and burial in holy ground to every one 
who yielded obedience to " the perfidious apos- 
tate and tyrant, Henry of Valois." 

The League immediately chose the Duke of 
Mayenne, a surviving brother of the Duke of 
Guise, as its head. The Pope issued his anath- 
emas against Henry III., and Spain sent her 
armies to unite with the League. Henry now 



232 King Heney IV. 

The king seeks aid from the Protestants. 

found it necessary to court the assistance of the 
Protestants. He dreaded to take this step, for 
he was superstitious in the extreme, and he 
could not endure the thought of any alliance 
with heretics. He had still quite a formidable 
force which adhered to him, for many of the 
highest nohles were disgusted with the arro- 
gance of the Guises, and were well aware that 
the enthronement of the house of Guise would 
secure their own banishment from court. 

The triumph of the League would be total 
discomfiture to the Protestants. No freedom 
of worship or of conscience whatever would be 
allowed them. It was therefore for the interest 
of the Protestants to sustain the more moderate 
party hostile to the League. It was estimated 
that about one sixth of the inhabitants of France 
were at that time Protestants. 

Wretched, war-scathed France was now dis- 
tracted by three parties. First, there were the 
Protestants, contending only in self-defense 
against persecution, and yet earnestly praying 
that, upon the death of the king, Henry of Na- 
varre, the legitimate successor, might ascend the 
throne. Next came those Catholics who were 
friendly to the claims of Henry from their re- 
spect for the ancient law of succession. Then 



The Assassination. 233 

Desolations of war. Compact with Henry of Navarre. 

came, combined in the League, the bigoted par- 
tisans of the Church, resolved to exterminate 
from Europe, with fire and sword, the detested 
heresy of Protestantism. 

Henry III. was now at the castle of Blois. 
Paris was hostile to him. The Duke of May- 
enne, younger brother of the Duke of Guise, at 
the head of five thousand soldiers of the League, 
marched to the metropolis, where he was re- 
ceived by the Parisians with unbounded joy. 
He was urged by the populace and the Parlia- 
ment in Paris to proclaim himself king. But 
he was not yet prepared for so decisive a step. 

No tongue can tell the misery which now per- 
vaded ill-fated France. Some cities were Prot- 
estant, some were Catholic ; division, and war, 
and blood were every where, i^rmed bands 
swept to and fro, and conflagration and slaugh- 
ter deluged the kingdom. 

The king immediately sent to Henry of Na- 
varre, promising to confer many political privi- 
leges upon the Protestants, and to maintain 
Henry's right to the throne, if he would aid him 
in the conflict against the League. The terms 
of reconciliation were soon efiected. Henry of 
Navarre, then leaving his army to advance by 
rapid marches, rode forward with his retinue to 



234 King Henry IV. 

Interview at Plessis les Tours. 

meet his brother-in-law, Henry of Valois. He 
found him at one of the ancient palaces of 
France, Plessis les Tours. The two monarchs 
had heen friends in childhood, but they had not 
met for many years. The King of JSTavarre was 
urged by his friends not to trust himself in the 
power of Henry III. " For," said they, " the 
King of France desires nothing so much as to 
obtain reconciliation with the Pope, and no of- 
fering can be so acceptable to the Pope as the 
death of a heretic prince." 

Henry hesitated a moment when he arrived 
upon an eminence which commanded a distant 
view of the palace. Then exclaiming, " God 
guides me, and He will go with me," he plunged 
his spurs into his horse's side, and galloped for- 
ward. 

The two monarchs met, each surrounded with 
a gorgeous retinue, in one of the magnificent 
avenues which conducted to the castle. For- 
getting the animosities of years, and remember- 
ing only the friendships of childhood, they cast 
themselves cordially into each other's arms. 
The multitude around rent the air with their 
acclamations. 

Henry of Navarre now addressed a manifesto 
to all the inhabitants of France in behalf of their 



The Assassination. 235 

The manifesto. Renewed war. 

ivoe- stricken country. "I conjure you all," 
said he, " Catholics as well as Protestants, to 
have pity on the state and on yourselves. We 
have all done and suffered evil enough. We 
have been four years intoxicate, insensate, and 
furious. Is not this sufficient ? Has not God 
smitten us all enough to allay our fury, and to 
make us wise at last ?" 

But passion was too much aroused to allow 
such appeals to be heeded. Battle after battle, 
with ever-varying success, ensued between the 
combined forces of the king and Henry of 'Nsl- 
varre on one side, and of the League, aided by 
many of the princes of Catholic Europe, on the 
other. The storms of winter swept over the 
freezing armies and the smouldering towns, and 
the wail of the victims of horrid war blended 
with the moanings of the gale. Spring came, 
but it brought no joy to desolate, distracted, 
wretched France. Summer came, and the bright 
sun looked down upon barren fields, and upon 
a bleeding, starving, fighting nation. Henry of 
Navarre, in command of the royal forces, at the 
head of thirty thousand troops, was besieging 
Paris, which was held by the Duke of Mayenne, 
and boldly and skillfully was conducting his 
approaches to a successful termination. The 



236 King Henry IV. 

Duchess of Montpensier. The flag of truce. 

cause of the League began to wane. Henry III. 
had taken possession of the castle of St. Cloud, 
and from its elevated windows looked out with 
joy upon the bold assaults and the advancing 
works. 

The leaders of the League now resolved to 
resort again to the old weapon of assassination. 
Henry III. was to be killed. But no man could 
kill him unless he was also willing to sacrifice 
his own life. The Duchess of Montpensier, sis- 
ter of the Duke of Guise, for the accomplish- 
ment of this purpose, won the love, by caress- 
ings and endearments, of Jaques Clement, an 
ardent, enthusiastic monk of wild and roman- 
tic imaginings, and of the most intense fanati- 
cism. The beautiful duchess surrendered her- 
self without any reserve whatever to the para- 
mour she had enticed to her arms, that she might 
obtain the entire supremacy over his mind. Cle- 
ment concealed a dagger in his bosom, and then 
went out from the gates of the city accompani- 
ed by two soldiers and with a flag of truce, os- 
tensibly to take a message to the king. He 
refused to communicate his message to any one 
but the monarch himself. Henry III., suppos- 
ing it to be a communication of importance, per- 
haps a proposition to surrender, ordered him to 



The Assassination. 239 

Assassination of Henry III. Arrival of Henry of Navarre. 

be admitted immediately to his cabinet. Two 
persons only were present with the king. • The 
monk entered, and, kneeling, drew a letter from 
the sleeve of his gown, presented it to the king, 
and instantly drawing a large knife from its con- 
cealment, plunged it into the entrails of his vic- 
tim. The king uttered a piercing cry, caught 
the knife from his body and struck at the head 
of his murderer, wounding him above the eye. 
The two gentlemen who were present instantly 
thrust their swords through the body of the as- 
sassin, and he fell dead. 

The king, groaning with anguish, was un- 
dressed and borne to his bed. The tidings 
spread rapidly, and soon reached the ears of 
the King of Navarre, who was a few miles dis- 
tant at Meudon. He galloped to St. Cloud, 
and knelt with gushing tears at the couch of 
the dying monarch. Henry III. embraced him 
with apparently the most tender affection. In 
broken accents, interrupted with groans of an- 
guish, he said, 

"If my wound proves mortal, I leave my 
crown to you as my legitimate successor. If 
my will can have any effect, the crown will re- 
main as firmly upon your brow as it was upon 
that of Charlemagne." 



240 King Henry IV. [1589. 

Dying scene. Henry IV. assumes the crown. 

He then assembled his principal officers 
around him, and enjoined them to unite for the 
preservation of the monarchy, and to sustain the 
claims of the King of Navarre as the indisputa- 
ble heir to the throne of France. 

A day of great anxiety passed slowly away, 
and as the shades of evening settled down over 
the palace, it became manifest to all that the 
wound was mortal. The wounded monarch 
writhed upon his bed in fearful agony. At 
midnight, Henry of Navarre, who was busily 
engaged superintending some of the works of 
the siege, was sent for, as the King of France 
was dying. Accompanied by a retinue of thir- 
ty gentlemen, he proceeded at full speed to the 
gates of the castle where the monarch was strug- 
gling in the grasp of the King of Terrors. 

It is difficult to imagine the emotions which 
must have agitated the soul of Henry of Na- 
varre during this dark and gloomy ride. The 
day had not yet dawned when he arrived at 
the gates of the castle. The first tidings he re- 
ceived were. The king is dead. It was the 2d 
of August, 1589. 

Henry of Navarre was now Henry IV., King 
of France. But never did monarch ascend the 
throne under circumstances of greater perplexi- 



1589.] The Assassination. 241 



Difficulties' of the new reiprn. 



ty and peril. Never was a more distracted king- 
dom placed in the hands of a new monarch. 
Henry was now thirty-four years of age. The 
whole kingdom was convulsed by warring fac- 
tions. For years France had been desolated 
by all the most virulent elements of religious 
and political animosity. All hearts were demor- 
alized by familiarity with the dagger of the as- 
sassin and the carnage of the battle-field. Al- 
most universal depravity had banished all re- 
spect for morality and law. The whole fabric 
of society was utterly disorganized. 

Under these circumstances, Henry developed 
that energy and sagacity which have given him 
a high position among the most renowned of 
earthly monarchs. He immediately assembled 
around him that portion of the royal army in 
whose fidelity he could confide. Without the 
delay of an hour, he commenced dictating let- 
ters to all the monarchies of Europe, announc- 
ing his accession to the throne, and soliciting 
their aid to confirm him in his legitimate rights. 

As the new sovereign entered the chamber 
of the deceased king, he found the corpse sur- 
rounded by many of the Catholic nobility of 
France. They were ostentatiously solemniz- 
ing the obsequies of the departed monarcli. He 

Q 



242 King Henky IV. [1589. 

Danger of assassination. 

heard many low mutterings from these zealous 
partisans of Rome, that they would rather die 
a thousand deaths than allow a Protestant king 
to ascend the throne. Angry eyes glared upon 
him from the tumultuous and mutinous crowd, 
and, had not Henry retired to consult for his 
own safety, he also might have fallen the vic- 
tim of assassination. In the intense excite- 
ment of these hours, the leading Catholics held 
a meeting, and appointed a committee to wait 
upon Henry, and inform him that he must im- 
mediately abjure Protestantism and adopt the 
Catholic faith, or forfeit their support to the 
crown. 

"Would you have me," Henry replied, '* pro- 
fess conversion with the dagger at my throat ? 
And could you, in the day of battle, follow one 
with confidence who had thus proved that he 
was an apostate and without a God? I can 
only promise carefully to examine the subject 
that I may be guided to the truth." 

Henry was a Protestant from the force of cir- 
cumstances rather than from conviction. He 
was not a theologian either in mind or heart, 
and he regarded the Catholics and Protestants 
merely as two political parties, the one or the 
other of which he would join, according as, in 



1589.] The Assassination. 243 



Religious principles of Henry IV. 



his view, it might promote his personal interests 
and the welfare of France. In his childhood 
he was a Catholic. In boyhood, under the tu- 
ition of his mother, Protestant influences were 
thrown around him, and he was nominally a 
Protestant. He saved his life at St. Bartholo- 
mew by avowing the CathoHc faith. When he 
escaped from the Catholic court and returned to 
his mother's Protestant court in Navarre, he es- 
poused with new vigor the cause of his Protest- 
ant friends. These changes were of course more 
or less mortifying, and they certainly indicated 
a total want of religious conviction. He now 
promised carefully to look at the arguments on 
both sides of the question, and to choose delib- 
erately that which should seem to him right. 
This arrangement, however, did not suit the 
more zealous of the Catholics, and, in great num- 
bers, they abandoned his camp and passed over 
to the League. 

The news of the death of Henry III. was re- 
ceived with unbounded exultation in the be- 
sieged city. The Duchess of Montpensier threw 
her arms around the neck of the messenger 
who brought her the welcome tidings, exclaim- 

" Ah ! my friend, is it true ? Is the monster 



244 King Henky IV. [1589. 



News of the death of Henry III. 



really dead ? What a gratification ! I am only 
grieved to think that he did not know that it 
was I who directed the blow." 

She rode out immediately, that she might 
have the pleasure herself of communicating the 
intelligence. She drove through the streets, 
shouting from her carriage, " Good news ! good 
news ! the tyrant is dead." The joy of the 
priests rose to the highest pitch of fanatical fer- 
vor. The assassin was even canonized. The 
Pope himself condescended to pronounce a eu- 
logium upon the ' '"martyr j'''' and a statue was 
erected to his memory, with the inscription, " St. 
Jaques Clement, pray for us." 

The League now proclaimed as king the old 
Cardinal of Bourbon, under the title of Charles 
X., and nearly all of Catholic Europe rallied 
around this pretender to the crown. No one 
denied the validity of the title, according to the 
principles of legitimacy, of Henry IV. His 
rights, however, the Catholics deemed forfeited 
by his Protestant tendencies. Though Henry 
immediately issued a decree promising every 
surety and support to the Catholic religion as 
the established religion of France, still, as he 
did not also promise to devote all his energies 
to the extirpation of the heresy of Protestant- 



1589.J The Assassination. 245 



Abandoned by the Catholics. 



i>gm, the great majority of the Cathohcs were 
dissatisfied. 

Epernon, one of the most conspicuous of the 
Catholic leaders, at the head of m.any thousand 
Catholic soldiers, waited upon the king imme- 
diately after the death of Henry III,, and in- 
formed him that they could not maintain a Prot- 
estant on the throne. With flying banners and 
resounding bugles they then marched from the 
camp and joined the League. So extensive 
was this disaffection, tha.t in one day Henry 
found himself deserted by all his army except 
six thousand, most of whom were Protestants, 
i^early thirty thousand men had abandoned 
him, some to retire to their homes, and others 
to join the enemy. 

The army of the League within the capital 
was now twenty thousand strong. They pre- 
pared for a rush upon the scattered and broken 
ranks of Henry IV. Firmly, fearlessly, and 
with well matured plans, he ordered a prompt 
retreat. Catholic Europe aroused itself in be- 
half of the League. Henry appealed to Prot- 
estant Europe to come to his aid. Elizabeth 
of England responded promptly to his appeal, 
and promised to send a fleet and troops to the 
harbor of Dieppe, about one hundred miles 



246 King Henry IV. [1589. 

The retveat. The stand at Diejjpe. 

northwest of Paris, upon the shores of the En- 
glish Channel. Firmly, and with concentrated 
ranks, the little army of Protestants crossed the 
Seine. Twenty thousand Leaguers eagerly 
pursued them, watching in vain for a chance to 
strike a deadly blow. Henry ate not, slept not, 
rested not. Night and day, day and night, he 
was every where present, guiding, encouraging, 
protecting this valiant band. Planting a rear 
guard upon the western banks of the Seine, the 
chafing foe was held in check until the Royalist 
army had retired beyond the Oise. Upon the 
farther banks of this stream Henry again rear- 
ed his defenses, thwarting every endeavor of 
his enemies, exasperated by such unexpected 
discomfiture. 

As Henry slowly retreated toward the sea, 
all the Protestants of the region through which 
he passed, and many of the moderate Catholics 
who were in favor of the royal cause and hos- 
tile to the house of Guise, flocked to his stand- 
ard. He soon found himself, with seven thou- 
sand very determined men, strongly posted be- 
hind the ramparts of Dieppe. 

But the Duke of Mayenne had also received 
large accessions. The spears and banners of 
his proud host, now numbering thirty-five thou- 



1589.] The Assassination. 247 

Henry urged to fly to England. • Anecdote. 

sand, gleamed from all the hills and valleys 
which surrounded the fortified city. For near- 
ly a month there was almost an incessant con- 
flict. Every morning, with anxious eyes, the 
Royalists scanned the watery horizon, hoping to 
see the fleet of England coming to their aid. 
Cheered by hope, they successfally beat back 
their assailants. The toils of the king were 
immense. With exalted military genius he 
guided every movement, at the same time shar- 
ing the toil of the humblest soldier. "It is a 
marvel," he wrote, " how I live with the labor 
I undergo. God have pity upon me, and show 
me mercy." 

Some of Henry's friends, apalled by the 
strength of the army pursuing them, urged him 
to embark and seek refuge in England. 

"Here we are," Henry replied, "in France, 
and here let us be buried. If we fly now, all 
our hopes will vanish with the wind whicii 
bears us." 

In a skirmish, one day, one of the Catholic 
chieftains, the Count de Belin, was taken cap- 
tive. He was led to the head-quarters of the 
king, Henry greeted him with perfect cordial- 
ity, and, noticing the astonishment of the count 
in seeing but a few scattered soldiers where he 



248 King Henry IV. [1589. 

Arrival of the fleet from England. 

had expected to see a numerous army, lie said, 
playfully, yet witb. a confident air, 
' " You do not perceive all that I have with 
me, M. de Belin, for you do not reckon Grod and 

Jhe right on my side." 

The indomitable energy of Henry, accompa- 
nied by a countenance ever serene and cheerful 
under circumstances apparently so desperate, 
inspired the soldiers with the same intrepidity 
which glowed in the bosom of their chief. 

But at last the valiant little band, so bravely 
repelling overwhelming numbers, saw, to their 
inexpressible joy, the distant ocean whitened 

* with the sails of the approaching English fleet. 
Shouts of exultation rolled along their exhaust- 
ed lines, carrying dismay into the camp of the 
Leaguers. A favorable wind pressed the fleet 
rapidly forward, and in a few hours, with stream- 
ing banners, and exultant music, and resound- 
ing salutes, echoed and re-echoed from English 
ships and French batteries, the fleet of Eliza- 
beth, loaded to its utmost capacity with money, 
military supplies, and men, cast anchor in the 
little harbor of Dieppe. 

JSTearly six thousand men, Scotch and En- 
glish, were speedily disembarked. The Duke 
of Mayenne, though his army was still double 



1589.] The Assassination. 249 



Bigotry ot the (JatlioiiCo. L*esolatiou of iraucti. 

that of Henry IV. , did not dare to await the on- 
set of his foes thus recruited. Hastily break- 
ing up his encampment, he retreated to Paris. 
Henry IV., in gratitude to God for the succoi' 
which he had thus received from the Protestan4 
Queen of England, directed that thanksgivings 
should be offered in his own quarters according 
to the religious rites of the Protestant Church. 
This so exasperated the Catholics, even in his 
own camp, that a mutiny was excited, and sev- 
eral of the Protestant soldiers were wounded in 
the fray. So extreme was the fanaticism at 
this time that, several Protestants, after a san- 
guinary figlit, having been buried on the battle- 
field promiscuously in a pit with some Catho- 
lics who had fallen by their side, the priests, 
even of Henry's army, ordered the Protestant 
bodies to be dug up and thrown out as food for 
dogs. 

While these scenes were transpiring in the 
vicinity of Dieppe, almost every part of France 
was scathed and cursed by hateful war. Every 
province, city, village, had its partisans for the 
League or for the king. Beautiful France was 
as a volcano in the world of woe, in whose 
seething crater flames, and blood, and slaughter, 
the yell of conflict and the shriek of f^gony, 



250 King Heney IV. [1589. 

Ignoble conduct of the League. 

blended in horrors which no imagination can 
compass. There was an end to every earthly 
joy. Cities were bombarded, fields of grain 
trampled in the mire, villages burned. Famine 
rioted over its ghastly victims. Hospitals were 
filled with miserable multitudes, mutilated and 
with festering wounds, longing for death. Not 
a ray of light pierced the gloom of this dark, 
black night of crime and woe. And yet, unde- 
niably, the responsibility before God must rest 
with the League. Henry IV. was the lawful 
king of France. The Catholics had risen in 
arms to resist his rights, because they feared 
that he would grant liberty of faith and wor- 
ship to the Protestants. 

The League adopted the most dishonorable 
and criminal means to alienate from Henry the 
affections of the people. They forged letters, 
in which the king atrociously expressed joy at 
the murder of Henry III., and declared his de- 
termination by dissimulation and fraud to root 
out Catholicism entirely from France. No ef- 
forts of artifice were wanting to render the mon- 
arch odious to the Catholic populace. Though 
the Duke of Mayenne occasionally referred to 
the old Cardinal of Bourbon as the king whom 
he acknowledged, he, with the characteristic 



1589.J The AssaSkSInation. 251 

Paris besieged. Assault of Etampes. 

haughtiness of the family of Guise, assumed 
himself the air and the language of a sovereign. 
It was very evident that he intended to place 
himself upon the throne. 

Henry lY., with the money furnished by 
Elizabeth, was now able to pay his soldiers 
their arrears. His army steadily increased, 
and he soon marched with twenty-three thou- 
sand troops and fourteen pieces of artillery to 
lay siege to Paris, His army had unbounded 
confidence in his military skill. With enthu- 
siastic acclamations they pursued the retreat- 
ing insurgents. Henry was now on the offens- 
ive, and his troops were posted for the siege of 
Paris, having driven the foe within its walls. 
After one sanguinary assault, the king became 
convinced that he had not with him sufficient 
force to carry the city. The Duke of Mayenne 
stood firmly behind the intrenchments of the 
capital, with an army much strengthened by 
re-enforcements of Spanish and Italian troops. 
Henry accordingly raised the siege, and march- 
ed rapidly to Etampes, some forty miles south 
of Paris, where a large part of his foes had es- 
tablished themselves. He suddenly attacked 
the town and carried it by assault. The un- 
happy inhabitants of this city had, in the course 



252 King Henry IV. [1589. 

Letter from Lorraine. Military reprisals. 

of four montlis, experienced the horrors of three 
assaults. The city, in that ^hort period, had 
been taken and retaken three times. 

While at Etampes, Henry received a letter 
from the beautiful but disconsolate Louisa of 
Lorraine, the widow of Henry III., imploring 
him to avenge the murder of her husband. The 
letter was so affecting that, when it was read 
in the king's council, it moved all the members 
to tears. 

Many of the citizens of Paris, weary of the 
miseries of civil war, were now disposed to ral- 
ly around their lawful monarch as the only 
mode of averting the horrible calamities which 
overwhelmed France. The Duke of Mayenne 
rigorously arrested all who were suspected of 
such designs, and four of the most prominent 
of the citizens were condemned to death. Hen- 
ry immediately sent a message to the duke, that 
if the sentence were carried into effect, he would 
retaliate by putting to death some of the Cath- 
olic nobles whom he had in his power. May- 
enne defiantly executed two Royalists. Henry 
immediately suspended upon a gibbet two un- 
fortunate Leaguers who were his captives. This 
decisive reprisal accomplished its purpose, and 
compelled Mayenne to be more merciful. 



1589.] The Assassination. 253 

Activity of Henry. Dissension among the Leaguei'?. 

With great energy, Henry now advanced to 
Tours, about one hundred and twenty miles 
south of Paris, on the banks of the Loire, tak- 
ing every town by the way, and sweeping all 
opposition before him. He seldom slept more 
than three hours at a time, and seized his meals 
where he could. 

"It takes Mayenne," said Henry, proudly, 
*•' more time to put on his boots than it does me 
to win a battle." 

" Henry," remarked Pope Sextus V., sadly, 
" will surely, in the end, gain the day, for he 
spends less hours in bed than Mayenne spends 
at the table." 

Though the armies of the League were still 
superior to the Royalist army, victory every 
where followed the banner of the king. Every 
day there was more and more of union and har- 
mony in his ranks, and more and more of dis- 
cord in the armies of the League. There were 
various aspirants for the throne in case Henry 
lY. could be driven from the kingdom, and all 
these aspirants had their partisans. The more 
reasonable portion of the Catholic party soon 
saw that there could be no end to civil war un- 
less the rights of Henry lY. were maintained. 
Each day consequently witnessed accessions of 



254 King Henry IV. [1589. 



Triumphant progress of Henry. 



powerful nobles to his side. The great mass 
of the people also, notwithstanding their hatred 
of Protestantism and devotion to the Catholic 
Church, found it difficult to hreak away from 
their homage to the ancient law of succession. 

It was now manifest to all, that if Henry 
would but proclaim himself a Catholic, the war 
would almost instantly terminate, and the peo- 
ple, with almos't entire unanimity, would rally 
around him. Henry IV. was a lawful monarch 
endeavoring to put down insurrection. May- 
enne was a rebel contending against his king. 
The Pope was so unwilling to see a Protestant 
sovereign enthroned in France, that he issued a 
bull of excommunication against all who should 
advocate the cause of Henry IV. Many of the 
B-oyalist Catholics, however, instead of yielding 
to these thunders of the Vatican, sent a humble 
apology to the Pope for their adherence to the 
king, and still sustained his cause. 

Henry now moved on with the strides of a 
conqueror, and city after city fell into his hands. 
Wherever he entered a city, the ever vacillating 
multitude welcomed him with acclamations. Re- 
gardless of the storms of winter, Henry drag- 
ged his heavy artillery through the mire and 
over the frozen ruts, and before the close of the 



1589.] The Assassination. 255 

Wonderful escape. 

year 1589 his banner waved over fifteen forti- 
fied cities and over very many minor towns. 
The forces of the League were entirely swept 
from three of the provinces of France. 

Still Paris was in the hands of the Duke of 
Mayenne, and a large part of the kingdom was 
yet held in subjection by the forces of the 
League. 

At one time, in the face of a fierce cannon- 
ade, Henry mounted the tower of a church at 
Meulun to ascertain the position of the enemy. 
As he was ascending, a cannon ball passed be- 
tween his legs. In returning, the stairs were 
found so shot away that he was compelled to 
let himself down by a rope. All the winter 
long, the storm of battle raged in every part of 
France, and among all the millions of the ill- 
fated realm, there could not then, perhaps, have 
been found one single prosperous and happy 
home. 



256 King Heney IV. [1590. 

Ferocity of the combatants. 



Chaptee X. 
Wae and Woe. 

CIVIL war seems peculiarly to arouse the 
ferocity of man. Family quarrels are no- 
toriously implacable. Throughout the whole 
kingdom of France the war raged with intense 
violence, brother against brother, and father 
against child. Farm-houses, cities, villages, 
were burned mercilessly. Old men, women, 
and cliildren were tortured and slain with in- 
sults and derision. Maiden modesty was cru- 
elly violated, and every species of inhumanity 
was practiced by the infuriated antagonists. 
The Catholic priests were in general conspicu- 
ous for their brutality. They resolved that 
the Protestant heresy should be drowned in 
blood and terror. 

Henry IV. was peculiarly a humane man. 
He cherished kind feelings for all his subjects, 
and was perfectly willing that the Catholic re- 
ligion should retain its unquestioned suprema- 
cy. His pride, however, revolted from yielding 
to ccmi'^vilsorY convcr:^io;], an:] he also revised 



1590.] War and Woe. ^ 257 

Liberality of Henry. Preparations for a battle. 

to become the persecutor of his former friends. 
Indeed, it seems probable that he was strongly 
inclined toward the Catholic faith as, on the 
whole, the safest and the best. He consequent- 
ly did every thing in his power to mitigate the 
mercilessness of the strife, and to win his Cath- 
olic subjects by the most signal clemency. But 
no efforts of his could restrain his partisans in 
different parts of the kingdom from severe re- 
taliation. 

Through the long months of a cold and dreary 
winter the awful carnage continued, with suc- 
cess so equally balanced that there was no pros- 
pect of any termination to this most awful of 
national calamities. Early in March, 1590, the 
armies of Henry IV. and of the Duke of May- 
enne began to congregate in the vicinity of Ivry, 
about fifty miles west of Paris, for a decisive 
battle. The snows of winter had nearly disap- 
peared, and the cold rains of spring deluged the 
roads. The Sabbath of the eleventh of March 
was wet and tempestuous. As night darkened 
over the bleak and soaked plains of Ivry, innu- 
merable battalions of armed men, with spears, 
and banners, and heavy pieces of artillery, drag- 
ged axle-deep through the mire, were dimly dis- 
cerned taking positions for an approaching bat- 

E 



258 King Heney IV. [1590. 

striking phenomeuon. The omen. 

tie. As the blackness of midnight enveloped 
them, the storm increased to fearful fury. The 
gale fiercely swept the plain, in its loud wail- 
ings and its roar frowning every human sound. 
The rain, all the night long, poured down in 
torrents. But through the darkness and the 
storm, and breasting the gale, the contending 
hosts, without even a watch-fire to cheer the 
gloom, waited anxiously for the morning. 

In the blackest hour of the night, a phenom- 
enon, quite unusual at that season of the year, 
presented itself. The lightning gleamed in daz- 
zling brilliance from cloud- to cloud, and the 
thunder rolled over their heads as if an aerial 
army were meeting and charging in the sanguin- 
ary fight. It was an age of superstition, and 
the shivering soldiers thought that they could 
distinctly discern the banners of the battling 
hosts. Eagerly and with awe they watched the 
surgings of the strife as spirit squadrons swept 
to and fro with streaming banners of fire, and 
hurling upon each other the thunderbolts of the 
skies. At length the storm of battle seemed to 
lull, or, rather, to pass away in the distance. 
There was the retreat of the vanquished, the 
pursuit of the victors. The flash of the guns 
became more faint, and the roar of the artillery 



1590.] Wae and Woe. 259 

Manoeuvres. Night before the battle. 

diminished as. farther and still farther the em- 
battled hosts vanished among the clouds. Again 
there was the silence of midnight, and no sounds 
were heard but the plashing of the rain. 

The Royalists and the insurgents, each party 
inflamed more or less by religious fanaticism, 
were each disposed to ^regard the ethereal battle 
as waged between the spirits of light and the 
spirits of darkness, angels against fiends. Each 
party, of course, imagined itself as represented 
by the angel bands, which doubtless conquered. 
The phenomenon was thus, to both, the omen 
of success, and inspired both with new energies. 

The morning dawned gloomily. Both armies 
were exhausted and nearly frozen by the chill 
storm of the night. Neither of the parties were 
eager to commence the fight, as each was anx- 
ious to wait for re-enforcements, which were 
hurrying forward, from distant posts, with the 
utmost possible speed. The two next days 
were passed in various manoeuvres to gain posts 
of advantage. The night of the 13th came. 
Henry took but two hours of repose upon a mat- 
tress, and then, every thing being arranged ac- 
cording to his wishes, spent nearly all the rest 
of the night in prayer. He urged the Catho- 
lics and the Protestants in his army to do the 



260 King Henry IV. [1590. 



Morning of the battle. 



same, each according to the rites of his own 
Church. The Catholic priests and the Protest- 
ant clergy led the devotions of their respective 
bands, and there can be no doubt whatever that 
they implored the aid of God with as perfect a 
conviction of the righteousness of their cause as 
the human heart can feel. 

And how was it in the army of the Duke of 
Mayenne ? They also looked to Grod for sup- 
port. The Pope, Christ's vicar upon earth, had 
blessed their banners. He had called upon all 
of the faithful to advocate their cause. He had 
anathematized their foes as the enemies of God 
and man, justly doomed to utter extermination. 
Can it be doubted that the ecclesiastics and the 
soldiers who surrounded the Duke of Mayenne, 
ready to lay down their lives for the Church, 
were also, many of them, sincere in their sup- 
plications ? Such is bewildered, benighted man. 
When will he imbibe the spirit of a noble toler- 
ation — of a kind brotherhood ? 

The morning of the 14th of March arrived. 
The stars shone brilliantly in the clear, cold sky. 
The vast plain of Ivry and its surrounding hills 
gleamed with the camp-fires of the two armies, 
now face to face. It is impossible to estimate 
with precision the two forces. It is generally 



1590.] War and Woe. 261 



Henry's address to his army. 



stated that Hemy lY. had from ten to twelve 
thousand men, and the Duke of Majenne from 
sixteen to twenty thousand. 

Before the first glimmer of day, Henry mount- 
ed his horse, a powerful bay charger, and riding 
slowly along his lines, addressed to every com- 
pany words of encouragement and hope. His 
spirit w^as subdued and his voice was softened 
by the influence of prayer. He attempted no 
lofty harangTie; he gave utterance to no clar- 
ion notes of enthusiasm ; but mildly, gently, 
with a trembling voice and often with a moist- 
ened eye, implored them to be true to God, to 
France, and to themselves. 

"Your future fame and your personal safe- 
ty," said he, " depend upon your heroism this 
day. The crown of France awaits the decision 
of your swords. If we are defeated to-day, we 
are defeated hopelessly, for we have no reserves 
upon which we can fall back." 

Then assembling nearly all his little band in 
a square around him, he placed himself upon an 
eminence where he could be seen by all, and 
where nearly all could hear him, and then, with 
clasped hands and eyes raised to Heaven, offer- 
ed the following prayer — a truly extraordinary 
prayer, so humble and so Christian in its spirit 
of resignation : 



262 King Henry IY. [1590. 

The prayer of Henry. Anecdote. 

" O God, I pray thee, who alone kno west the 
intentions of man's heart, to do thy will upon 
nie as thou shalt judge necessary for the weal 
of Christendom. And wilt thou preserve me as 
long as thou seest it to be needful for the hap- 
piness and the repose of France, and no longer. 
If thou dost see that I should be one of those 
kings on whom thou dost lay thy wrath, take 
my life with my crown, and let my blood be the 
last poured out in this quarrel." 

Then turning to his troops, he said, 

" Companions, God is with us. You are to 
meet His enemies and ours. If, in the turmoil 
of the battle, you lose sight of your banner, fol- 
low the white plume upon my casque. You 
will find it in the road to victory and honor." 

But a few hours before this. General Schom- 
berg, who was in command of the auxiliaries 
furnished to Henry by Germany, urged by the 
importunity of his troops, ventured to ask for 
their pay, which was in arrears. Henry, irri- 
tated, replied, 

" A man of courage would not ask for money 
on the eve of a battle." 

The words had no sooner escaped his lips 
than he regretted them. Henry now rode to 
the quarters of this veteran officer, and thus 
magnanimously addressed him : 



1590.] War and Woe. 263 

Magnanimity of Henry. The battle of Ivry. 

" General Schomberg, I have insulted you. 
As this day may be the last of my life, I would 
not carry away the honor of a gentleman and be 
unable to restore it. I know your valor, and 
I ask your pardon. I beseech you to forgive 
me and embrace me." 

This was true magnanimity. General Schom- 
berg nobly replied, 

" Sire, you did, indeed, wound me yesterday, 
but to-day you kill me. The honor you have 
done me will lead me to lay down my life in 
your service." 

A terrible battle immediately ensued. All 
fought bravely, ferociously, infernally. Love 
and peace are the elements of heaven. Hatred 
and war are the elements of hell. Man, upon 
the battle-field, even in a good cause, must call 
to his aid the energies of the world of woe. 
Rushing squadrons swept the field, crushing be- 
neath iron hoofs the dying and the dead. Grape- 
shot mowed down the crowded ranks, splinter- 
ing bones, and lacerating nerves, and extorting 
shrieks of agony which even the thunders of the 
battle could not drown. Henry plunged into 
the thickest of the fight, every where exposing 
himself to peril like the humblest soldier. The 
conflict was too desperate to be lasting. In 



264 King Heney IV. [1590. 

Heroism of Henry. The Leaguers vanquished. 

less than an hour the field of battle was crimson 
with blood and covered with mangled corpses. 

The Leaguers began to waver. They broke 
and fled in awful confusion. The miserable 
fugitives were pursued and cut down by the 
keen swords of the cavalry, while from every 
eminence the cannon of the victors plowed their 
retreating ranks with balls. Henry himself 
headed the cavalry in the impetuous pursuit, 
that the day might be the more decisive. When 
he returned, covered with blood, he was greeted 
from his triumphant ranks with the shout, Vive 
le roi ! 

Marshal Biron, with a powerful reserve, had 
remained watching the progress of the fight, 
ready to avail himself of any opportunity which 
might present to promote or to increase the dis- 
comfiture of the foe. He now joined the mon- 
arch, saying, 

" This day, sire, you have performed the part 
of Marshal Biron, and Marshal Biron that of 
the king." 

"Let us praise God, marshal," answered 
Henry, "for the victory is his." 

The routed army fled with the utmost pre- 
cipitation in two directions, one division toward 
Chartres and the other toward Ivry. The whole 



1590. j War and Woe. 265 

Flight of the Leaguers. Detestable conduct of Mayenne. 

Boyalist army hung upon their rear, assailing 
them with every available missile of destruc- 
tion. The Duke of Mayenne fled across the 
Eure. Thousands of his broken bands were 
crowding the shore, striving to force their way 
across the thronged bridge, when the Eoyalist 
cavalry, led by the monarch himself, was seen 
in the distance spurring furiously over the hills. 
Mayenne himself having passed, in order to se- 
cure his own safety, cruelly gave the command 
to destroy the bridge, leaving the unhappy men 
who had not yet crossed at the mercy of the 
victors. The bridge was immediately blown 
up. Many of those thus abandoned, in their 
terror cast themselves into the flooded stream, 
where multitudes were drowned. Others shot 
their horses and built a rampart of their bodies. 
Behind this revolting breastwork they defended 
themselves, until, one after another, they all fell 
beneath the sabres and the bullets of the Prot- 
estants. In this dreadful retreat more than two 
thousand were put to the sword, large numbers 
were drowned, and many were taken captive. 

In this day, so glorious to the Royalist cause, 
more than one half of the army of the Leaguers 
were either slain or taken prisoners. Though 
the Duke of Mayenne escaped, many of his best 



266 King Henry IV. [1590. 



Lines on the battle of Ivry. 



generals perished upon the field of battle or were 
captured. It is reported that Henrj shouted to 
his victorious troops as they were cutting down 
the fugitives, " Spare the French ; they are our 
brethren." 

This celebrated battle has often been the 
theme of the poet. But no one has done the 
subject better justice than Mr. Macaulay in the 
following spirited lines. They are intended to 
express the feelings of a Huguenot soldier. 

THE BATTLE OF IVRY. 

"The king has come to marshal us, all in his armor dressed. 
And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant 

crest. 
He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye ; 
He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and 

high. 
Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to 

wing, 
Down all our line, a deafening shout, ' God save our lord 

the king !' 
* And if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he may, 
For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray. 
Press where ye see my white plume shine, amid the ranks 

of war, 
And be your oriflamme to-day the helmet of Navarre.' 

"'Hurrah! the foes are coming! Hark to the mingled 
din 
Of fife and steed, and trump and drum, and roaring cul- 
verin ! 



1590.] War and Woe. 267 



Lines on the battle of Ivry. 



The fiery duke is pricking fast across St. Andre's plain, 

With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and Almagne. 

Now, by the lips of those we love, fair gentlemen of France, 

Charge for the golden lilies now — upon them with the 
lance!' 

A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears in 
rest, 

A thousand knights are pressing close behind the snow- 
white crest. 

And on they burst, and on they rushed, while, like a guid- 
ing star. 

Amid the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of Navarre. 

"Now, God be praised, the day is ours! Mayenne hath turn- 
ed his rein, 

D'Aumale hath cried for quarter, the Flemish count is 
slain ; 

Their ranks are breaking like thin clouds before a Biscay 
gale; 

The field is heaped with bleeding steeds, and flags, -and 
cloven mail. 

And then we thought on vengeance, and all along our van, 

'Remember St. Bartholomew,' was passed from man to 
man; 

But out spake gentle Henry, 'No Frenchman is my foe; 

Down — down with every foreigner ! but let your brethren 
go.' 

Oh, Avas there ever such a knight, in friendship or in war. 

As our sovereign lord King Henry, the soldier of Na- 
varre?" 

This decisive battle established Henry on the 
throne. Mayenne still held Paris, and many 
other important fortresses in other parts of 



268 King Henry IV. [1590. 

Paris in consternation. Inexplicable delay. 

France ; but liis main army was defeated and 
dispersed, and lie could no longer venture to 
encounter Hemy in the open field. Having 
thrown some additional forces into Paris, which 
city he knew that Henry would immediately be- 
siege, he fled to Flanders to obtain re-enforce- 
ments. 

Paris was in consternation. Not a town in 

its vicinity could resist the conqueror. Henry 
was but two days' march from his rebellious 
capital. The Leaguers could hope for no aid 
for many weeks. The Royalist cause had many 
friends among the Parisians, eager for an oppor- 
tunity to raise within their walls the banner of 
their lawful sovereign. 

Henry had now the entire command of the 
Seine from Rouen to Paris. Had he immedi- 
ately marched upon the capital, there can be no 
doubt that it would have been compelled to sur- 
render ; but, for some reason which has never 
been satisfactorily explained, he remained for a 
fortnight within one day's march of the field of 
Ivry. Various causes have been surmised for 
this unaccountable delay, but there is no au- 
thentic statement to be found in any letters 
written by Henry, or in any contemporaneous 
records. The time, however, thus lost, w^at- 



1590.] War and Woe. 269 

Magnanimity to the Swiss Catholics. 

ever might have been the cause, proved to him a 
terrible calamity. The partisans of the League 
in the city had time to recover from their panic, 
to strengthen their defenses, and to collect sup- 
plies. 

One act of magnanimity which Henry per- 
formed during this interval is worthy of record. 
Two regiments of Swiss Catholics, who had been 
sent to fight beneath the banners of Mayenne, 
had surrendered to the royal forces. They were 
for a few d^ys intensely anxious respecting their 
fate. Henry restored to them their ensigns, 
furnished them with money, supplied them with 
provisions, and sent them back to their native 
country. He gave them a letter to the Swiss 
cantons, with dignity reproaching them for their 
violation of the friendly treaty existing between 
Switzerland and the crown of France. 

It was not until the 28th of March that Hen- 
ry appeared before the walls of Paris. By this 
time the Leaguers had made preparations to re- 
sist him. Provisions and military stores had 
been accumulated. Troops had been hurried 
into the city, and arrangements were made to 
hold out till Mayenne could bring them succor. 
Now a siege was necessary, with all its accom- 
paniments of blood and woe. There were now 



270 King Heney IV. [1590. 

Paris blockaded. Death of the Cardinal of Bourbon. 

fifty thousand fighting men in the city when 
Henry commenced the siege with but twelve 
thousand foot and three thousand horse. 

In this emergence the energy of Henry re- 
turned. He took possession of the river above 
and below the city. Batteries were reared upon 
the heights of Montmartre and Montfau9on, and 
cannon balls, portentous of the rising storm, be- 
gan to fall in the thronged streets of the me- 
tropolis. In the midst of this state of things 
the old Cardinal of Bourbon died. The Leag- 
uers had pronounced him king under the title 
of Charles X. The insurgents, discomfited in 
battle, and with many rival candidates ambi- 
tious of the crown, were not in a condition to at- 
tempt to elect another monarch. They thought 
it more prudent to combine and fight for vic- 
tory, postponing until some future day their 
choice of a king. The Catholic priests were al- 
most universally on their side, and urged them, 
by all the most sacred importunities of religion, 
rather to die than to allow a heretic to ascend 
the throne of France. 

Day after day the siege continued. There 
were bombardments, and conflagrations, and sal- 
lies, and midnight assaults, and all the tumult, 
and carnage, and woe of horrid war. Three 



1590.] Wae and Woe. 271 

Horrors of famine. Kindness of Henry. 

hundred thousand men, women, and children 
were in the beleaguered city. All supplies were 
cut off. Famine commenced its ravages. The 
wheat became exhausted, and they ate bran. 
The bran was all consumed, and the haggard 
citizens devoured the dogs and the cats. Starv- 
ation came. On parlor floors and on the hard 
pavement emaciate forms were stretched in the 
convulsions of death. The shrieks of women 
and children in their dying agonies fell in tones 
horrible to hear upon the ears of the besiegers. 
The tender heart of Henry was so moved by 
the sufferings which he was unwillingly instru- 
- mental in inflicting, that he allowed some pro- 
visions to be carried into the city, though he 
thus protracted the siege. He hoped that this 
humanity would prove to his foes that he did 
not seek revenge. The Duke of Nemours, who 
conducted the defense, encouraged by this un- 
military humanity, that he might relieve him- 
self from the encumbrance of useless mouths, 
drove several thousands out of the city. Hen- 
ry, with extraordinary clemency, allowed three 
thousand to pass through the ranks of his army. 
He nobly said, "I can not bear to think of their 
sufferings. I had rather conquer my foes by 
kindness than by arms." But the number still 



272 King Henry IV. [1590. 

Murmurs in Paris. The assault. 

increasing, and the inevitable effect "being only 
to enable the combatants to hold out more stub- 
bornly, Henry reluctantly ordered the soldiers 
to allow no more to pass. 

The misery which now desolated the city 
was awful. Famine bred pestilence. Woe and 
deatk were every where. The Duke of Ne- 
mours, younger brother of the Duke of May- 
enne, hoping that Mayenne might yet bring re- 
lief, still continued the defense. The citizens, 
tortured by the unearthly woes which pressed 
them on every side, began to murmur. Nemours 
erected scaffolds, and ordered every murmurer 
to be promptly hung as a partisan of Henry. 
Even this harsh remedy could not entirely si- 
lence fathers whose wives and children were 
dying of starvation before their eyes. 

The Duke of Mayenne was preparing to march 
to the relief of the city with an army of Span- 
iards. Henry resolved to make an attempt to 
take the city by assault before their arrival. 
The hour was fixed at midnight, on the 24th 
of July. Henry watched the sublime and ter- 
rific spectacle from an observatory reared on 
the heights of Montmartre. In ten massive col- 
umns the Royalists made the fierce onset. The 
besieged were ready for them,with artillery load- 



1590.] Wae and Woe. 273 

The suburbs taken. The Duchess of Montpensier. 

ed to the muzzle and with lighted torches. An 
eje-witness thus describes the spectacle : 

"The immense city seemed instantly to blaze 
with conflagrations, or rather by an infinity of 
mines sprung in its heart. Thick whirlwinds 
of smoke, pierced at intervals by flashes and 
long lines of flame, covered the doomed city. 
The blackness of darkness at one moment en- 
veloped it. Again it blazed forth as if it were 
a sea of fire. The roar of cannon, the clash of 
arms, and the shouts of the combatants added 
to the horrors of the night." 

By this attack all of the suburbs were taken, 
and the condition of the besieged rendered more 
hopeless and miserable. There is no siege upon 
record more replete with horrors. The flesh 
of the dead was eaten. The dry bones of the 
cemetery were ground up for bread. Starving 
mothers ate their children. It is reported that 
the Duchess of Montpensier was oflered three 
thousand crowns for her dog. She declined the 
ofier, saying that she should keep it to eat her- 
self as her last resource. 

The compassion of Henry triumphed again 
and again over his military firmness. He al- 
lowed the women and children to leave the city, 
then the ecclesiastics, then the starving poor, 

S 



274 King Henry IV. [1590. 



Great clemency of Henry. 



then the starving rich. Each of these acts of 
generosity added to the strength of his foes. 
The famished Leaguers were now in a condi- 
tion to make but a feeble resistance. Henry 
was urged to take the city by storm. He could 
easily do this, but fearful slaughter would be 
the inevitable result. For this reason Henry 
refused, saying, 

" I am their father and their king. I can 
not hear the recital of their woes without the 
deepest sympathy. I would gladly relieve 
them, I can not prevent those who are pos- 
sessed with the fury of the League from per- 
ishing, but to those who seek my clemency I 
must open my arms." 

Early in August, more than thirty thousand 
within the walls of the city had perished by 
famine. Mayenne now marched to the relief 
of Paris. Henry, unwisely, military critics say, 
raised the siege and advanced to meet him, hop- 
ing to compel him to a decisive battle. May- 
enne skillfully avoided a battle, and still more 
skillfully threw abundant supplies into the city. 

And now loud murmurs began to arise in the 
camp of Henry. Many of the most influential 
of the Catholics who adhered to his cause, dis- 
heartened by this result and by the indications 



1591.J War and Woe. 275 

MuniiurB in the camp. Desultory warfare. 

of an endless war, declared tliat it was in vain 
to hope that any Protestant could be accepted 
as King of France. The soldiers could not con- 
ceal their discouragement, and the cause of the 
king was involved anew in gloom. 

Still Henry firmly kept the field, and a long 
series of conflicts ensued between detachments 
of the E-oyalist army and portions of the Span- 
ish troops under the command of the Duke of 
Mayenne and the Duke of Parma. The energy 
of the king was roused to the utmost. Victory 
accompanied his marches, and his foes were 
driven before him. 

The winter of 1591 had now arrived, and still 
unhappy France was one wide and wasted bat- 
tle-field. Confusion, anarchy, and misery every 
where reigned. Every village had its hostile 
partisans. Catholic cities were besieged by 
Protestants, and Protestant towns by Catholics. 
In the midst of these terrible scenes, Henry had 
caught a glimpse, at the chateau of Coeuvres, of 
the beautiful face of Gabrielle d'Estrees. Igno- 
bly yielding to a guilty passion, he again for- 
got the great affairs of state and the woes of his 
distracted country in the pursuit of this new 
amour. The history of this period contains but 
a monotonous record of the siege of innumera- 



276 King Henry IV. [1591. 



Awful condition of France. 



He towns, with all the melancholy accompani- 
ments of famine and blood. Summer came and 
went, and hardly a sound of joy was heard amid 
all the hills and valleys of beautiful but war- 
scathed France. 

There was great division existing among the 
partisans of the League, there being several can- 
didates for the throne. There was but one 
cause of division in the ranks of Henry. That 
he was the legitimate sovereign all admitted. 
It was evident to all that, would Henry but ab- 
jure Protestantism and embrace the Catholic 
faith, nearly all opposition to him would instant- 
ly cease. Many pamphlets were issued by the 
priests urging the iniquity of sustaining a her^ 
etic upon the throne. The Pope had not only 
anathematized the heretical sovereign, but had 
condemned to eternal flames all who should 
maintain his cause. 

Henry had no objection to Catholicism. It 
was the religion of five sixths of his subjects. 
He was now anxious to give his adherence to 
that faith, could he contrive some way to do it 
with decency. He issued many decrees to con- 
ciliate the Romanists. He proclaimed that he 
had never yet had time to examine the subject 
of religious faith ; that he was anxious for in- 



I 



1591.J Wak and Woe. 277 

Attempts to conciliate the Catholics. Curious challenge. 

. — _ « . 

struction ; that he was ready to submit to the 
decision of a council ; and that under no cir- 
cumstances would he suffer any change in 
France detrimental to the Catholic religion. At 
the same time, with energy which reflects cred- 
it upon his name, he declared the bull fulmi- 
nated against him by Gregory XIV. as abusive, 
seditious, and damnable, and ordered it to be 
burned by the public hangman. 

By the middle of iJ^ovember, 1591, Henry, 
with an army of thirty-five thousand men, sur- 
rounded the city of Rouen. Queen Elizabeth 
had again sent him aid. The Earl of Essex 
joined the royal army with a retinue whose 
splendor amazed the impoverished nobles of 
France. His own gorgeous dress, and the ca- 
parisons of his steed, were estimated to be worth 
sixty thousand crowns of gold. The garrison 
of Rouen was under the command of Governor 
Yillars. Essex sent a curious challenge to Vil- 
lars, that if he would meet him on horseback or 
on foot, in armor or doublet, he would maintain 
against him man to man, twenty to twenty, or 
sixty to sixty. To this defiance the earl add- 
ed, "I am thus ready to prove that the cause 
of the king is better than that of the League, 
that Essex is a braver man than Yillars, and 



278 King Henry IV. 

A new dynasty contemplated. 
»- !^ . 

that my mistress is more beautiful than youxs." 
Villars declined the challenge, declaring, how- 
ever,' that the three assertions were false, but 
that he did not trouble himself much about the 
respective beauty of their mistresses. 

The weary siege continued many weeks, va- 
ried with fierce sallies and bloody skirmishes. 
Henry labored in the trenches like a common 
soldier, and shared every peril. He was not 
wise in so doing, for his life was of far too much 
value to France to be thus needlessly periled. 

The influential Leaguers in Paris now formed 
the plan to found a new dynasty in France by 
uniting in marriage the young Duke of Guise — 
son of Henry of Guise who had been assassin- 
ated — with Isabella, the daughter of Philip II., 
King of Spain. This secured for their cause 
all the energies of the Spanish monarchy. This 
plan immediately introduced serious discord be- 
tween Mayenne and his Spanish allies, as May- 
enne hoped for the crown for himself. About 
the same time Pope Gregory XIV. died, still 
more depressing the prospects of Mayenne; but, 
with indomitable vigor of intrigue and of battle, 
he still continued to guide the movements of 
the League, and to watch for opportunities to 
secure for himself the crown of France, 



lo91,j Wae and Woe. 279 

Trouble in the camp of Henry. 

— ■ — — ^ 

The politics of the nation were now in an in- 
extricable labyrinth of confusion. Henry lY. 
was still sustained by the Protestants, though 
they were ever complaining that he favored too 
much the Catholics. He was also sustained 
by a portion of the moderate Catholics. They 
were, however, quite lukewarm in their zeal, and 
were importunately demanding that he should 
renounce the Protestant faith and avow himself 
a Catholic, or they would entirely abandon him. 
The Swiss and Germans in his ranks were fill- 
ing the camp with murmurs, demanding their 
arrears of pay. The English troops furnished 
him by Elizabeth refused to march from the 
coast to penetrate the interior. 

The League was split into innumerable fac- 
tions, some in favor of Mayenne, others sup- 
porting the young Cardinal of Bourbon, and oth- 
ers still advocating the claims of the young- 
Duke of Guise and the Infanta of Spain. They 
were all, however, united by a common detesta- 
tion of Protestantism and an undying devotion 
to the Church of Eome. 

In the mean time, though the siege of Rouen 
was pressed with great vigor, all efforts to take 
the place were unavailing. Henry was repeat- 
edlv baffled and discomfited, and it became dai~ 



280 King Heney IV. [1591. 

Motives for abjuring Protestantism, 

ij more evident that, as a Protestant, he nev- 
er could occupy a peaceful throne in Catholic 
France. Even many of the Protestant leaders, 
who were politicians rather than theologians, 
urged Henry to become a Catholic, as the only 
possible means of putting an end to this cruel 
civil war. They urged that while his adoption 
of the Catholic faith would reconcile the Cath- 
olics, the Protestants, confiding in the freedom 
of faith and worship which his just judgment 
would secure to them, would prefer him for their 
sovereign to any other whom they could hope 
to obtain. Thus peace would be restored to 
distracted France. Henry listened with a will- 
ing mind to these suggestions. To give assur- 
ance to the Catholics of his sincerity, he sent 
embassadors to Rome to treat with the Pope in 
regard to his reconciliation with the Church. 



CONVEESION OF THE KiNG. 281 



Advice of the Duke of Sully. 



Chapter XI. 
The Conveesion of the King. 

THIS bloody war of the succession had now 
desolated France for four years. The Duke 
of Sully, one of the most conspicuous of the po- 
litical Calvinists, was at last induced to give 
his influence to lead the king to accept the Cath- 
olic faith. Sully had been Henry's companion 
from childhood. Though not a man of deep re- 
ligious convictions, he was one of the most il- 
lustrious of men in ability, courage, and integ- 
rity. Conversing with Henry upon the dis- 
tracted affairs of state, he said, one day, 

" That you should wait for me, being a Prot- 
estant, to counsel you to go to mass, is a thing 
you should not do, although I will boldly de- 
clare to you that it is the prompt and easy way 
of destroying all malign projects. You will 
thus meet no more enemies, sorrows, nor diffi- 
culties in this world. As to the other worlds'''' 
he continued, smiling, "I can not answer for 
that." 

The king continued in great perplexity. He 
felt that it was degrading to change his religion 



282 King Henry IY. 

Perplexity of Henry. Theological argument of Sully. 

upon apparent compulsion, or for the accomplish- 
ment of any selfish purpose. He knew that he 
must expose himself to the charge of apostasy 
and of hypocrisy in affirming a change of belief, 
even to accomplish so meritorious a purpose as 
to rescue a whole nation from misery. These 
embarrassments to a vacillating mind were ter- 
rible. 

Early one morning, before rising, he sent for 
Sully. The duke found the king sitting up in 
his bed, " scratching his head in great perplexi- 
ty." The political considerations in favor of 
the change urged by the duke could not satisfy 
fully the mind of the king. He had still some 
conscientious scruples, imbibed from the teach- 
ings of a pious and sainted mother. The illus- 
trious warrior, financier, and diplomatist now 
essayed the availability of theological consider- 
ations, and urged the following argument of Jes- 
uitical shrewdness : 

"I hold it certain," argued the duke, "that 
whatever be the exterior form of the religion 
which men profess, if they live in the observa- 
tion of the Decalogue, believe in the Creed of the 
apostles, love God with all their heart, have 
charity toward their neighbor, hope in the mer- 
cy of God, and to obtain salvation by the death, 



Conversion of the King. 283 

Philip of Mornay, Lord of Plessis. 

merits, and justice of Jesus Christ, they can not 
fail to be saved." 

Hemy caught eagerly at this plausible argu- 
ment. The Catholics say that no Protestant 
can be saved, but the Protestants admit that 
a Catholic may be, if in heart honest, just, and 
true. The sophistry of the plea in behalf of an 
insincere renunciation of faith is too palpable to 
influence any mind but one eager to be con- 
vinced. The king was counseled to obey the 
Decalogue, which forbids false witness, while 
at the same time he was to be guilty of an act 
of fraud and hypocrisy. 

But Henry had another counselor. Philip 
of Mornay, Lord of Plessis, had imbibed from 
his mother's lips a knowledge of the religion of 
Jesus Christ. His soul was endowed by na- 
ture with the most noble lineaments, and he 
was, if man can judge, a devoted and exalted 
Christian. There was no one, in those stormy 
times, more illustrious as a warrior, statesman, 
theologian, and orator. " We can not," says a 
French writer, "indicate a species of merit in 
which he did not excel, except that he did not 
advance his own fortune." When but twelve 
years of age, a priest exhorted him to beware of 
the opinions of the Protestants. 



284 King Henry IV. 

Inflexible integrity of Mornay. 

"I am resolved," Philip replied, firmly, " to 
remain steadfast in what I have learned of the 
service of God. When I doubt any point, I 
will diligently examine the Gospels and the 
Acts of the Apostles." 

His uncle, the Archbishop of Eheims, advised 
him to read the fathers of the Church, and 
promised him the revenues of a rich abbey and 
the prospect of still higher advancement if he 
would adhere to the Catholic religion. Philip 
read the fathers and declined the bribe, saying, 

'' I must trust to God for what I need." 

Almost by a miracle he had escaped the Mas- 
sacre of St. Bartholomew and fled to England. 
The Duke of Anjou, who had become King of 
Poland, wishing to conciliate the Protestants, 
wrote to Mornay in his poverty and exile, pro- 
posing to him a place in his ministry. The 
noble man replied, 

" I will never enter the service of those who 
have shed the blood of my brethren." 

He soon joined the feeble court of the King 
of Navarre, and adhered conscientiously, through 
all vicissitudes, to the Protestant cause. Hen- 
ry IV. was abundantly capable of appreciating 
such a character, and he revered and loved Mor- 
nay. His services were invaluable to Henry, 



Conversion of the King. 285 

Mornay's reply to Henry III. • 

for he seemed to be equally skillful in nearly all 
departments of knowledge and of business. He 
could with equal facility guide an army, con- 
struct a fortress, and write a theological treat- 
ise. Many of the most important state papers 
of Henry IV. he hurriedly wrote upon the field 
of battle or beneath his wind-shaken tent. Hen- 
ry III., on one occasion, had said to him, 

" How can a man of your intelligence and 
ability be a Protestant ? Have you never read 
the Catholic doctors ?" 

" Not only have I read the Catholic doctors," 
Mornay replied, "but I have read them with 
eagerness ; for I am flesh and blood like other 
men, and I was not born without ambition. I 
should have been very glad to find something 
to flatter my conscience that I might participate 
in the favors and honors you distribute, and 
from which my religion excludes me ; but, above 
all, I find something which fortifies my faith, 
and the world must yield to conscience." 

The firm Christian principles of Philip of 
Mornay were now almost the only barrier which 
stood in the way of the conversion of Henry. 
The Catholic lords offered Mornay twenty thou- 
sand crowns of gold if he would no more awak- 
en the scruples of the king. Nobly he replied, 



286 King Henry IV. 

Attempt to bribe Momay. His address to the courtiers. 



" The conscience of my master is not for sale, 
neither is mine." 

Great efforts were then made to alienate Hen- 
ry from his faithful minister. Mornay by chance 
one day entered the cabinet of the king, where 
his enemies were busy in their cabals. In the 
boldness of an integrity which never gave him 
cause to blush, he thus addressed them in the 
presence of the sovereign : 

"It is hard, gentlemen, to prevent the king 
my master from speaking to his faithful servant. 
The proposals which I offer the king are such 
that I can pronounce them distinctly before you 
all. I propose to him to serve God with a good 
conscience ; to keep Him in view in every ac- 
tion; to quiet the schism which is in his state 
by a holy reformation of the Church, and to be 
an example for all Christendom during all time 
to come. Are these things to be spoken in a 
corner ? Do you wish me to counsel him to go 
to mass ? With what conscience shall I advise 
if I do not first go myself? And what is re- 
ligion, if it can be laid aside like a shirt ?" 

The Catholic nobles felt the power of this 
moral courage and integrity, and one of them, 
Marshal d'Aumont, yielding to a generous im- 
pulse, exclaimed, 



Conversion of the King. 287 

Indecision of Heniy. Process of conversion. 

"You are better than we are, Monsieur Mor- 
nay ; and if I said, two days ago, that it was 
necessary to give you a pistol-shot in the head, 
I say to-day entirely the contrary, and that you 
should have a statue." 

Henry, however, was a politician, not a Chris- 
tian ; and nothing is more amazing than the 
deaf ear which even apparently good men can 
turn to the pleadings of conscience when they 
are involved in the mazes of political ambition. 
The process of conversion was, for decency's 
sake, protracted and ostentatious. As Henry 
probably had no fixed religious principles, he 
could with perhaps as much truth say that he 
was a Catholic as that he was a Protestant. 

On the 23d of July the king listened to a 
public argument, live hours in length, from the 
Archbishop of Bourges, upon the points of es- 
sential difference between the two antagonistic 
creeds. Henry found the reasoning of the arch- 
bishop most comfortably persuasive, and, hav- 
ing separated himself for a time from Mornay, 
he professed to be solemnly convinced that the 
Roman Catholic faith was the true religion. 
Those who knew Henry the best declare that 
he was sincere in the change, and his subse- 
quent life seems certainly to indicate that he 



288 King Heney IV. 



Testimony of Sully. Gabrielle d'Estrees. 

was so. The Duke of Sully, who refused to 
follow Henry into the Catholic Church, records, 

"As uprightness and sincerity formed the 
depth of his heart, as they did of his words, I 
am persuaded that nothing would have been ca- 
pable of making him embrace a religion which 
he internally despised, or of which he even 
doubted." 

In view of this long interview with the Arch- 
bishop of Bourges, Henry wrote to the frail but 
beautiful Gabrielle d'Estrees, 

"I began this morning to speak to the bish- 
ops. On Sunday I shall take the perilous leap." 
The king's connection with Gabrielle presented 
another strong motive to influence his conver- 
sion. Henry, when a mere boy, had been con- 
strained by political considerations to marry 
the worthless and hateful sister of Charles IX. 
For the wife thus coldly received he never felt 
an emotion of affection. She was an unblush- 
ing profligate. The king, in one of his cam- 
paigns, met the beautiful maiden Gabrielle in 
the chateau of her father. They both immedi- 
ately loved each other, and a relation prohibited 
by the divine law soon existed between them. 
Never, perhaps, was there a better excuse for 
unlawful love. But guilt ever brings woe. Nei- 



Conversion of the King. 289 

Influence of Gabrielle. Abjuration of Protestantism. 

ther party were happy. Gabrielle felt condemn- 
ed and degraded, and urged the king to obtain a 
divorce from the notoriously profligate Margue- 
rite of Valois, that their union might be sanc- 
tioned by the rites of religion. Henry loved 
Gabrielle tenderly. Her society was his chief- 
est joy, and it is said that he ever remained faith- 
ful to her. He was anxious for a divorce from 
Marguerite, and for marriage with Gabrielle. 
But this divorce could only be obtained through 
the Pope. Hence Gabrielle exerted all her in- 
fluence to lead the king into the Church, that 
this most desired end might be attained. 

The king now openly proclaimed his readi- 
ness to renouiice Protestantism and to accept 
the Papal Creed. The Catholic bishops pre- 
pared an act of abjuration, rejecting, very deci- 
sively, one after another, every distinguishing 
article of the Protestant faith. The king glanced 
his eye over it, and instinctively recoiled from 
an act which he seemed to deem humiliating. 
He would only consent to sign a very brief dec- 
laration, in' six lines, of his return to the Church 
of Rome. The paper, however, which he had 
rejected, containing the emphatic recantation of 
every article of the Protestant faith, was sent to 
the Pope with the forged signature of the king. 



290 King Heney IV. [1593. 

Public adoption of the Catholic faith. 

The final act of renunciation was public, and 
was attended with much dramatic pomp, in the 
great church of St. Denis. It was Sunday, the 
twenty-fifth of July, 1593. The immense ca- 
thedral was richly decorated. Flowers were 
scattered upon the pavements, and garlands and 
banners festooned the streets and the dwell- 
ings. 

At eight o'clock in the morning Henry pre- 
sented himself before the massive portals of the 
Cathedral. He was dressed in white satin, with 
a black mantle and chapeau. The white plume, 
which both pen and pencil have rendered illus- 
trious, waved from his hat. He was surround- 
ed by a gorgeous retinue of nobles and officers 
of the crown. Several regiments of soldiers, in 
the richest uniform, preceded and followed him 
as he advanced toward the church. Though a 
decree had been issued strictly prohibiting the 
populace from being present at the ceremony, 
an immense concourse thronged the streets, 
greeting the monarch with enthusiastic cries of 
" Vive le roi P'' 

The Archbishop of Bourges was seated at 
the entrance of the church in a chair draped 
with white damask. The Cardinal of Bourbon, 
and several bishops glittering in pontifical robes. 



Conversion of the King. 293 



Ceremony in the Church of St. Denis. 

composed liis brilliant retinue. The monks of 
St. Denis were also in attendance, clad in their 
sombre attire, bearing the cross, the Gospels, 
and the holy water. Thus the train of the ex- 
alted dignitary of the Church even eclipsed in 
splendor the suite of the king. 

As Henry approached the door of the church, 
the archbishop, as if to repel intrusion, imperi- 
ously inquired, 

"Who are you?" 

" I am the king," Henry modestly replied. 

" Wli^vt do you desire V demanded the arch- 
bishop. 

" I ask," answered the king, " to be received 
into the bosom of the Catholic, Apostolic, and 
Roman religion." 

" Do you desire this sincerely .^" rejoined the 
archbishop. 

" I dO;" the king replied. Then kneeling at 
the feet of the prelate, he pronounced the fol- 
lowing oath : 

" I protest and swear, in the presence of Al- 
mighty God, to live and die in the Catholic, 
Apostolic, and Roman religion ; to protect and 
defend it against all its enemies at the hazard 
of my blood and life, renouncing all heresies 
contrary to it." 



294 King Henry IV. 



Alleged sincerity of the kint 



The king then placed a copy of this oath in 
writing in tlie hands of the archbishop, and kiss- 
ed the consecrated ring upon his holy finger. 
Then entering the Cathedral, he received the ab- 
solution of his sins and the benediction of the 
Church. A Te Deum was then sung, high 
mass was solemnized, and thus the imposing 
ceremony was terminated. 

It is easy to treat this whole affair as a farce. 
The elements of ridicule are abundant. But it 
was by no means a farce in the vast influences 
which it evolved. Catholic historians have al- 
most invariably assumed that the king acted in 
perfect good faith, being fully convinced by the 
arguments of the Church. Even Henry's Prot- 
estant friend, the Duke of Sully, remarks, 

" I should betray the cause of truth if I suf- 
fered it even to be suspected that policy, the 
threats of the Catholics, the fatigue of labor, 
the desire of rest, and of freeing himself from 
the tyranny of foreigners, or even the good of 
the people, had entirely influenced the king's res- 
olution. As far as I am able to judge of the 
heart of this prince, which I believe I know bet- 
ter than any other person, it was, indeed, these 
considerations which first hinted to him the ne- 
cessity of his conversion ; but, in the end, he 



Conversion of the King. 295 

other motives assigned. 

became convinced in his own mind that the 
Catholic religion was the safest." 

Others have affirmed that it was a shameful 
act of apostasy, in which the king, stimulated 
by ambition and unlawful love, stooped to hy- 
pocrisy, and feigned a conversion which in heart 
he despised. He is represented as saying, with 
levity, 

" Paris is well worth a mass." 

Others still assert that Henry was humanely 
anxious to arrest the horrors of civil war ; to 
introduce peace to distracted France, and to se- 
cure the Protestants from oppression. His ac- 
ceptance of the Catholic faith was the only ap- 
parent way of accomplishing these results. Be- 
ing a humane man, but not a man of establish- 
ed Christian principle, he deemed it his duty to 
pursue the course which would accomplish such 
results. The facts, so far as known, are before 
the reader, and each one can form his own judg- 
ment. 

The announcement throughout the kingdom 
that Henry had become a Catholic almost im- 
mediately put an end to the civil war. Incited 
by the royal example, many of the leading Prot- 
estants, nobles and gentlemen, also renounced 
Protestantism, and conformed to the religion of 



296 Kjng Henky IV. 

Political effects of IIcnry"s conversion. 

the state. Tlie chiefs of the League, many of 
whom were ambitious political partisans rather 
than zealous theologians, and who were clamor- 
ous for Catholicism onlj as the means of ob- 
taining power, at once relinquished all hope of 
victory. For a time, however, tliey still as- 
sumed a hostile attitude, and heaped unmeas- 
ured ridicule upon what they styled the feigned 
conversion of the king. They wished to com- 
pel the monarch to purchase their adhesion at 
as dear a price as possible. 

Many important cities surrendered to the roy- 
al cause imder the stipulation that the preach- 
ing of the Protestants should be utterly prohib- 
ited in their precincts and suburbs. Even the 
Pope, Clement VIII., a weak and bigoted man, 
for a time refused to ratify the act of the Arch- 
bishop of Bourges in absolving Henry from the 
pains and penalties of excommunication. He 
forbade the envoy of Henry to approach the 
Vatican. The Duke of Nevers, who was the 
appointed envoy, notwithstanding this prohibi- 
tion, persisted in his endeavors to obtain an au- 
dience ; but the Pope was anxious to have the 
crown of France in the possession of one whose 
Catholic zeal could not be questioned. He 
would much have preferred to see the fanatic 



Conversion of the King. 297 

Satisfaction of the peojile. Ferocity of the Pope. 

Duke of Mayenne upon the throne, or to have 
promoted the Spanish succession. He therefore 
treated the Duke of ISTevers with great indignity, 
and finally gave him an abrupt dismission. 

But the mass of tlie French people, longing 
for repose, gladly accepted the conversion of the 
king. One after another the leaders of the 
League gave in their adhesion to the royal 
cause. The Duke of Mayenne, however, held 
out, Paris being still in his possession, and sev- 
eral other important cities and fortresses being 
garrisoned by his troops. The Pope, at length, 
having vainly done every thing in his power to 
rouse France and Catholic Europe to resist 
Henry, condescended to negotiate. His spirit 
may be seen in the atrocious conditions which 
he proposed. As the price of his absolution, he 
required that Henry should abrogate every edict 
of toleration, that he should exclude Protestants 
from all public offices, and that he should ex- 
terminate them from the kingdom as soon as 
possible. 

To these demands Henry promptly replied, 
"I should be justly accused of shamelessness 
and ingratitude if, after having received such 
signal services from the Protestants, I should 
thus persecute them," 



298 King Henry IV. [1594. 

Coronation of the king. Paris secretly surrendered. 

Henry was fully aware of the influence of 
forms upon the imaginations of the people. He 
accordingly made preparations for his corona- 
tion. The event was celebrated with great 
pomp, in the city of Chartres, on the 27th of 
February, 1594. The Leaguers were now quite 
disheartened. Every day their ranks were di- 
minishing. The Duke of Mayenne, apprehen- 
sive that his own partisans might surrender Par- 
is to the king, and that thus he might be taken 
prisoner, on the 6th of March, with his wife and 
children, left the city, under the pretense of be- 
ing called away by important business. 

Three hours after midnight of the 21st of the 
month the gates were secretly thrown open, and 
a body of the king's troops entered the metrop- 
olis. They marched rapidly along the silent 
streets, hardly encountering the slightest oppo- 
sition. Before the morning dawned they had 
taken possession of the bridges, the squares, and 
the ramparts, and their cannon were planted so 
as to sweep all the important streets and ave- 
nues. 

The citizens, aroused by the tramp of infant- 
ry and of cavalry, and by the rumbling of the 
heavy artillery over the pavements, rose from 
their beds, and crowded the windows, and throng- 



CONVEESION OF THE KlNG. 299 

The entry to Paris. Noble conduct. 

ed the streets. In the early dawn, the king, ac- 
companied by the officers of his staff, entered 
the capital. He was dressed in the garb of a 
civilian, and was entirely unarmed. All were 
ready to receive him. Shouts of "Peace! 
peace ! Long live the king ! " reverberated in 
tones of almost delirious joy through the thor- 
oughfares of the metropolis. Henry thus ad- 
vanced through the ranks of the rejoicing peo- 
ple to the great cathedral of Notre Dame, where 
mass was performed. He then proceeded to 
the royal palace of the Louvre, which his offi- 
cers had already prepared for his reception. All 
the bells of the city rung their merriest chimes, 
bands of music pealed forth their most exultant 
strains, and the air was rent with acclamations 
as the king, after all these long and bloody wars, 
thus peacefully took possession of the capital of 
his kingdom. 

In this hour of triumph Henry manifested 
the most noble clemency. He issued a decree 
declaring that no citizen who had been in rebel- 
lion against him should be molested. Even the 
Spanish troops who were in the city to fight 
against him were permitted to depart with their 
arms in their hands. As they defiled through 
the gate of St. Denis, the king stood by a win- 



aOO King Henry IY. 

Justice of Henry IV. tlov in J'avus. 

dow, and, lifting his hat, respectfully saluted 
the officers. They immediately approached the 
magnanimous monarch, and. Lending the knee, 
thanked him feelingly for his great clemency. 
The king courteously replied, 

"Adieu, gentlemen, adieu! Commend me 
to your master, and go in peace, hut do not 
come back again." 

La None, one of Henry's chief supporters, as 
he was entering the city, had his baggage at- 
tached for an old debt. Indignantly he hasten- 
ed to the king to complain of the outrage. The 
just monarch promptly but pleasantly replied, 

" We must pay om' debts. La None. I pay 
mine." Then drawing his faithful servant aside, 
he gave him his jewels to pledge for the deliv- 
erance of his baggage. The king was so im- 
poverished that he had not money sufficient to 
pay the debt. 

These principles of justice and magnanimity, 
which were instinctive with the king, and which 
v/ere daily manifested in multiplied ways, soon 
vron to him nearly all hearts. All France had 
writhed in anguish through years of war and 
misery. Peace, the greatest of all earthly bless- 
inp's, was now beo-innino- to diffiise its iovs. The 
happiness of the Parisians amounted almost to 



1595.] Conversion of the King. 301 

Reconciliation with the Pope. Henry chastised by proxy. 

transport. It was difficult for the king to pass 
through the streets, the crowd so thronged him 
with their acclamations. Many other import- 
ant towns soon surrendered. But the haughty 
Duke of Mayenne refused to accept the proffer- 
ed clemency, and, strengthened by the tremen- 
dous spiritual power of the head of the Church, 
still endeavored to arouse the energies of Papal 
fanaticism in Flanders and in Spain. 

Soon, however, the Pope became convinced 
that all further resistance would be in vain. It 
was but compromising his dignity to be van- 
quished, and he accordingly decided to accept 
reconciliation. In yielding to this, the Pope 
stooped to the following silly farce, quite char- 
acteristic of those days of darkness and delu- 
sion. It was deemed necessary that the king 
should do penance for his sins before he could 
be received to the bosom jof holy mother Church. 
It was proper that the severe mother should 
chastise her wayward child. '' Whom the Lord 
loveth he chasteneth." 

It was the sixteenth of September, 1595. 
The two embassadors of Henry IV. kneeled 
upon the vestibule of one of the churches in 
Rome as unworthy to enter. In strains of af- 
fected penitence, they chanted the Miserere — 



302 King Henry IV. 

The farce. Cause of the war. 

"Have mercy, Lord." At the close of every 
verse they received, in the name of their mas- 
ter, the blows of a little switch on their shoul- 
ders. The king, having thus made expiation 
for his sins, through the reception of this chas- 
tisement by proxy, and having thus emphatic- 
ally acknowledged the authority of the sacred 
mother, received the absolution of the vicar of 
Christ, and was declared to be worthy of the 
loyalty of the faithful. 

We have called this 2^ farce. And yet can 
it be justly called so ? The proud spirit of the 
king must indeed have been humiliated ere he 
could have consented to such a degradation. 
The spirit ennobled can bid defiance to any 
amount of corporeal pain. It is ignominy alone 
which can punish the soul. The Pope triumph- 
ed ; the monarch was flogged. It is but just 
to remark that the friends of Henry deny that 
he was accessory to this act of humiliation. 

The atrocious civil war, thus virtually, for a 
time, terminated, was caused by the Leaguers, 
who had bound themselves together in a secret 
society for the persecution of the Protestants. 
Their demand was inexorable that the Protest- 
ants throughout France should be proscribed and 
exterminated. The Protestants were compel- 



Conversion of the King. 303 

The Protestants still persecuted. Scene of massacre. 

led to unite in self-defense. They only asked 
for liberty to worship God according to their 
understanding of the teachings of the Bible. 
Henry, to conciliate the Catholics, was now 
compelled to yield to many of their claims which 
were exceedingly intolerant. He did this very 
unwillingly, for it was his desire to do every 
thing in his power to meliorate the condition 
of his Protestant friends. But, notwithstand- 
ing all the kind wishes of the king, the condi- 
tion of the Protestants was still very deplora- 
ble. Public opinion was vehemently against 
them. The magistrates were every where their 
foes, and the courts of justice were closed against 
all their appeals. Petty persecution and tu- 
multuary violence in a thousand forms annoyed 
them. During the year of Henry's coronation, 
a Protestant congregation in Chalaigneraie was 
assailed by a Catholic mob instigated by the 
Leaguers, and two hundred men, women, and 
children were massacred. A little boy eight 
years old, in the simplicity of his heart, offer- 
ed eight coppers which he had in his pocket 
to ransom his life ; but the merciless fanatics 
struck him down. Most of these outrages were 
committed with entire impunity. The king 
had even felt himself forced to take the oath, 



304 King Heney IV. 

Dissatisfaction of both Catholics and Protestants. 

" I will endeavor with all my power, in good 
faith, to drive from my jurisdiction and estates 
all the heretics denounced by the Church." 

The Protestants, finding themselves thus de- 
nounced as enemies, and being cut oiF from all 
ordinary privileges and from all common jus- 
tice, decided, for mutual protection, vigorously 
to maintain their political organization. The 
king, though he feigned to be displeased, still 
encouraged them to do so. Though the Prot- 
estants were few in numbers, they were power- 
ful in intelligence, rank, and energy; and in 
their emergencies, the strong arm of England 
was ever generously extended for their aid. 
The king was glad to avail himself of their 
strength to moderate the intolerant demands of 
the Leaguers. Many of the Protestants com- 
plained bitterly that the king had abandoned 
them. On the other hand, the haughty leaders 
of the League clamored loudly that the king- 
was not a true son of the Church, and, in mul- 
tiform conspiracies, they sought his death by 
assassination. 

The Protestants held several large assemblies 
in which they discussed their affairs. They 
drew up an important document — an address to 
the king, entitled, " Complaints of the Reform- 



Conversion of the King. 305 

Complaints of the Reformed Churches of France. 

ed Churches of France." Many pages were 
filled with a narrative of the intolerable griev- 
ances they endured. This paper contained, in 
conclusion, the following noble words : 

"And yet, sire, we have among us no Jaco- 
bins or Jesuits who wish for your life, or 
Leaguers who aspire to your crown. We have 
never presented, instead of petitions, the points 
of our swords. We are rewarded with consid- 
erations of state. It is not yet time, they say, 
to grant us an edict. And yet, after thirty-five 
years of persecution, ten years of banishment 
by the edicts of the League, eight years of the 
king's reign, four years of proscription, we are 
still under the necessity of imploring from your 
majesty an edict which shall allow us to enjoy 
what is common to all your subjects. The sole 
glory of God, the liberty of our consciences, the 
repose of the state, the security of our property 
and our lives— this is the summit of our wishes, 
and the end of our requests." 

U 



306 King Henry IV. 

Mayenne professes reconciliation. Terms exacted by the duke. 



Chaptee XII. 
Eeign and Death of Henry IV. 

THE reconciliation of the king witli the Pope 
presented a favorable opportunity for the 
Duke of Mayenne, consistently with his pride, 
to abandon the hopeless conflict. He declared 
that, as the Pope had accepted the conversion 
of the king, all his scruples were removed, and 
that he could now conscientiously accept him as 
the sovereign of France. But the power of the 
haughty duke may be seen in the terms he ex- 
acted. 

The king was compelled to declare, though 
he knew to the contrary, that, all things con- 
sidered, it was evident that neither the princes 
nor the princesses of the League were at all im- 
plicated in the assassination of Henry III., and 
to stop all proceedings in Parliament in refer- 
ence to that atrocious murder. Three fortified 
cities were surrendered to the duke, to be held 
by him and his partisans for six years, in pledge 
for the faithful observance of the terms of the 
capitulation. The king also assumed all the 



Eeign of Henry IV. 307 

Interview between Henry and the duke. 

debts which Mayenne had contracted during the 
war, and granted a term of six weeks to all the 
Leaguers who were still in arms to give in their 
adhesion and to accept his clemency. 

The king was at this time at Monceaux. 
The Duke of Mayenne hastened to meet him. 
He found Henry riding on horseback in the 
beautiful park of that place with the fair Ga- 
brielle, and accompanied by the Duke of Sully. 
Mayenne, in compliance with the obsequious 
etiquette of those days, kneeled humbly before 
the king, embraced his knees, and, assuring him 
of his entire devotion for the future, thanked 
the monarch for having delivered him "from 
the arrogance of the Spaniards and from the 
cunning of the Italians." 

Henry, who had a vein of waggery about him, 
immediately raised the duke, embraced him with 
the utmost cordiality, and, taking his arm, with- 
out any allusion whatever to their past difficul- 
ties, led him through the park, pointing out to 
him, with great volubility and cheerfulness, the 
improvements he was contemplating. 

Henry was a well-built, vigorous man, and 
walked with great rapidity. Mayenne was ex- 
cessively corpulent, and lame with the gout. 
With the utmost difficulty he kept up with the 



308 King Heney IV. 

Henry's revenge. Hostility of Spain and Flanders. 

king, panting, limping, and his face "blazing with 
the heat. Henry, with sly malice, for some time 
appeared not to notice the sufferings of his vic- 
tim ; then, with a concealed smile, he whispered 
to Sully, 

" If I walk this great fat "body much long- 
er, I shall avenge myself without any further 
trouble." Then turning to Mayenne, he added, 
" Tell me the truth, cousin, do I not walk a lit- 
tle too fast for you ?" 

" Sire," exclaimed the puffing duke, "I am 
almost dead with fatigue." 

" There's my hand," exclaimed the kind- 
hearted king, again cordially embracing the 
duke. " Take it, for, on my life, this is all the 
vengeance I shall ever seek." 

There were still parts of the kingdom which 
held out against Henry, and Spain and Flan- 
ders freely supplied men and ammunition to 
the fragments of the League. Calais was in 
the hands of the enemy. Queen Elizabeth of 
England had ceased to take much interest in 
the conflict since the king had gone over to the 
Catholics. When Calais was besieged by the 
foe, before its surrender she offered to send her 
fleet for its protection if Henry would give the 
city to her. Henry tartly replied, " I had rath- 



Eeign op Henry IV. 311 

Calais taken by the Leaguers, 

er be plundered by my enemies than by my 
friends." 

The queen was offended, sent no succor, and 
Calais passed into the hands of the Leaguers. 
The king was exceedingly distressed at the loss 
of this important town. It indicated new and 
rising energy on the part of his foes. The more 
fanatical Catholics all over the kingdom, who 
had never been more than half reconciled to 
Henry, were encouraged to think that, after all 
their defeats, resistance might still be success- 
ful. The heroic energies of the king were, how- 
ever, not depressed by this great disaster. When 
its surrender was announced, turning to the 
gentlemen of his court, he calmly said, 

" My friends, there is no remedy. Calais is 
taken, but we must not lose our courage. It 
is in the midst of disasters that bold men grov/ 
bolder. Our enemies have had then- turn. 
With God's blessing, who has never abandoned 
me when I have prayed to him with my whole 
heart, we shall jet have ours. At any event, I 
am greatly comforted by the conviction that I 
have omitted nothing that was possible to save 
the city. All of its defenders have acquitted 
themselves loyally and nobly. Let us not re- 
proach them. On the contrary, let us do hon- 



312 King Henry IV. 

Movement of the nobles. 

or to their generous defense. And now let us 
rouse our energies to retake the city, that it 
may remain in the hands of the Spaniards not 
so many days as our ancestors left it years in 
the hands of the English." 

A large body of the nobles now combined to 
extort from the king some of the despotic feu- 
dal privileges which existed in the twelfth cen- 
tury. They thought that in this hour of re- 
verse Henry would be glad to purchase their 
powerful support by surrendering many of the 
prerogatives of the crown. After holding a 
meeting, they appointed the Duke of Montpen- 
sier, who was very young and self-sufficient, to 
present their demands to the king. Their plan 
was this, that the king should consent to the 
division of France into several large depart- / 
ments, over each of which, as a vassal prince, 
some distinguished nobleman should reign, col- 
lecting his own revenues and maintaining his 
own army. Each of |hese vassal nobles was 
to be bound, when required, to furnish a milita- 
ry contingent to their liege lord the king, 

Montpensier entered the presence of the mon- 
arch, and in a long discourse urged the insult- 
ing proposal. The king listened calmly, and 
without interrupting him, to the end. Then, in 



1796.] Eeign of Heney IV. 313 

Energetic reply of the king. Dark days. 

tones unimpassioned, but firm and deliberate, 
he replied, 

" My cousin, you must be insane. Such 
language coming from you^ and addressed to 
•me^ leads me to think that I am in a dream. 
Views so full of insult to the sovereign, and 
ruin to the state, can not have originated in 
your benevolent and upright mind. Think you 
that the people, having stripped me of the au- 
gust prerogatives of royalty, would respect in 
you the rights of a prince of the blood ? Did 
I believe that you, in heart, desired to see me 
thus humiliated, I would teach you that such 
an offense is not to be committed with impuni- 
ty. My cousin, abandon these follies. Reveal 
not your accomplices, but reply to them that 
you yourself have such a horror of these propo- 
sitions that you will hold him as a deadly ene- 
my who shall ever speak to you of them again." 

This firmness crushed the conspiracy; but 
still darkness and gloom seemed to rest upon 
unhappy France. The year 1796 was one of 
famine and of pestilence. "We had," says a 
writer of the times, "summer in x4.pril, autumn 
in May, and winter in June." In the city and 
in the country, thousands perished of starva- 
tion. Famishing multitudes crowded to the 



314 King Henky IV. [1796. 

Singular accident. Deplorable state of France. 

gates of tHe city in searcli of food, but in the 
city tlie plague had broken forth. The author- 
ities drove the mendicants back into the coun- 
try. They carried with them the awful pesti- 
lence in every direction. At the same time, sev- 
eral attempts were made to assassinate the king. 
Though he escaped the knife of the assassin, he 
came near losing his life by a singular accident. 

The Princess of Navarre, sister of the king, 
had accompanied him, with the rest of the court, 
into Picardy. She was taken suddenly ill. The 
king called to see her, carrying in his arms his 
infant son, the idolized child of the fair Gabri- 
elle. While standing by the bedside of his sis- 
ter, from some unexplained cause, the flooring 
gave way beneath them. Henry instinctively 
sprang upon the bed with his child. Providen- 
tially, that portion of the floor remained firm, 
while all the rest was precipitated with a crash 
into the rooms below. Neither Henry, his sis- 
ter, or his child sustained any injury. 

The financial condition of the empire was in 
a state of utter ruin — a ruin so hopeless that the 
almost inconceivable story is told that the king 
actually suffered both for food and raiment. He 
at times made himself merry with his own rag- 
ged appearance. At one time he said gayly, 



1796.] Eeign of Heney IV. 315 

Poverty of the king. Deprcrsion of the king. 

when the Parliament sent the president, Se- 
guier, to remonstrate against a fiscal edict, 

"I only ask to be treated as they treat the 
monks, with food and clothing. Now, Mr. Pres- 
ident, I often have not enough to eat. As for 
my habihments, look and see how I am accou- 
tred," and he pointed to his faded and thread- 
bare doublet. 

Le Grain, a contemporary, writes, " I have 
seen the king with a plain doublet of white stuff, 
all soiled by his cuirass and torn at the sleeve', 
and with well-worn breeches, unsewn on the 
side of the sword-belt." 

While the king was thus destitute, the mem- 
bers of the council of finance were practicing 
gross extortion, and living in extravagance. 
The king was naturally light-hearted and gay, 
but the deplorable condition of the kingdom oc- 
casionally plunged him into the deepest of mel- 
ancholy. A lady of the court one day remark- 
ed to him that he looked sad. 

"Indeed," he replied, "how can I be other- 
wise, to see a people so ungrateful toward their 
king ? Though I have done and still do all I 
can for them, and though for their welfare I 
would willingly sacrifice a thousand lives had 
God given me so many, as I have often proved, 
yet they daily attempt my life." 



316 King Henry IV. [1596. 

The Duke of Sully. Siege of Amiens. 

The council insisted that it was not safe for 
the king to leave so many of the Leaguers in 
the city, and urged their banishment. The 
king refused, saying, 

" They are all my subjects, and I wish to love 
them equally." 

The king now resolved, notwithstanding 
strong opposition from the Catholics, to place 
his illustrious Protestant friend, Sully, at the 
head of the ministry of finance. Sully entered 
upon his Herculean task with shrewdness which 
no cunning could baffle, and with integrity 
which no threat or bribe could bias. All the 
energies of calumny, malice, and violence were 
exhausted upon him, but this majestic man 
moved straight on, heedless of the storm, till he 
caused order to emerge from apparently inex- 
tricable confusion, and, by just and healthy 
measures, replenished the bankrupt treasury of 
the state. 

• The king was now pushing the siege of Ami- 
ens, which had for some time been in the hands 
of his enemies. During this time he wrote to 
his devoted friend and faithful minister of 
finance, 

"I am very near the enemy, yet I have scarce- 
ly a horse upon which I can fight, or a suit of 



1597-8.] Reign of Henry IY. 317 

Its capitulation. The Edict of Nantes. 

armor to put on. Mj doublet is in holes at the 
elbows. My kettle is often empty. For these 
two last days I ha.ve dined with one and an- 
other as I could. My purveyors inform me that 
they have no longer the means of supplying my 
table." 

On the twenty-fifth of June, 1597, Amiens 
capitulated. 

One of the kings of England is said to have 
remarked to his son, who was eager to ascend 
the throne, " Thou little knowest, my child, 
what a heap of cares and sorrows thou graspest 
at." History does, indeed, prove that "uneasy 
lies the head that wears a crown." New per- 
plexities now burst upon the king. The Prot- 
estants, many of them irritated by his conver- 
sion, and by the tardy and insufficient conces- 
sions they received, violently demanded entire 
equality with the Catholics. This demand led 
to the famous Edict of Nantes. This ordi- 
nance, which receives its name from the place 
where it was published, was issued in the month 
of April, 1598. It granted to the Protestants 
full private liberty of conscience. It also per- 
mitted them to enjoy public worship in all 
places where the right was abeady established. 
Protestant lords of the highest rank could cele- 



318 King Henry IV. [1598. 

Provisions of the edict. Clamors of the Catholics. 

brate divine service in their castles with any 
number of their retainers. Nobles of the second 
rank might maintain private worship in their 
mansions, to which thirty persons could be ad- 
mitted. Protestants were pronounced to be eli- 
gible to public office. Their children were to 
be admitted to the schools, their sick to the 
hospitals, and their poor to a share of the pub- 
lic charities. In a few specified places they 
were permitted to print books. Such, in the 
main, was the celebrated " Edict of Nantes." 

The Catholics considered this an enormous 
and atrocious concession to deadly heresy. New 
clamors blazed forth against Henry, as in heart 
false to the Church. The Catholic clergy, in 
one combined voice, protested against it, and 
Pope Clement YIII. declared the Edict of 
Nantes, which permitted liberty of conscience 
to every one, the most execrable that was ever 
made, 

. It has required centuries of blood and woe 
to teach even a few individuals the true princi- 
ples of religious liberty. Even in Protestant 
lands, the masses of the people have not yet 
fully learned that lesson. All over Catholic 
Europe, and all through the realms of pagan- 
ism, intolerance still sways her cruel and bloody 



1598.] Eeign of Heney IV. 319 

Toleration slo-wly learned. Dissatisfaction of both parties. 

sceptre. These miserable religious wars in 
France, the birth of ignorance, fanaticism, and 
depravity, for seventy years polluted the state 
with gory scaffolds and blazing stakes. Three 
thousand millions of dollars were expended in 
the senseless strife, and two millions of lives 
were thrown away. At the close of the war, 
one half of the towns and the majestic castles 
of beautiful France were but heaps of smould- 
ering ruins. All industry was paralyzed. The 
fields were abandoned to weeds and barrenness. 
The heart and the mind of the whole nation 
was thoroughly demoralized. Poverty, emacia- 
tion, and a semi-barbarism deformed the whole 
kingdom. 

Neither the Catholics nor Protestants were 
satisfied with the Edict of Nantes. The Par- 
liament of Paris, composed almost entirely of 
Catholics, for a long time refused its ratifica- 
tion. Henry called the courts before him, and 
insisted with kindness, but with firmness, that 
the edict should be verified. 

" Gentlemen," said he, in the long speech 
which he made upon the occasion, "there must 
be no more distinction between Catholics and 
Protestants. All must be good Frenchmen. 
Let the Catholics convert the Protestants bj 



320 King Henry IV. [1598. 

Progress of affairs. Prosperity in the kingdom. 

the example of a good life. I am a shepherd- 
king, who will not shed the blood of his sheep, 
but who will seek to bring them all with kind- 
ness into the same fold." 

The Catholic Pariiament, thus constrained, 
finally adopted the edict. The Protestants also, 
perceiving clearly that this was the best that 
the king could do for them, after long discus- 
sion in their Consistory, which was, in reality, 
their Parliament, finally gave in their adhesion. 
The adjoining hostile powers, having no longer 
a party in France to join them, were thus dis- 
armed. They sent embassadors to promote 
peace. Friendly treaties were speedily formed, 
and Henry was the undisputed monarch of a 
kingdom in repose. 

Henry now commenced, with great energy, 
the promotion of the prosperity of his exhaust- 
ed kingdom. To check the warlike spirit which, 
had so long been dominant, he forbade any of 
his subjects, except his guards, to carry arms. 
The army was immediately greatly reduced, and 
public expenditures so diminished as material- 
ly to lighten the weight of taxation. Many of 
the nobles claimed exemption from the tax, but 
Henry was inflexible that the public burden 
should be borne equally by all. The people. 



1598.] Reign of Heney IV. 321 

Henry's illness. Devotion of his subjects. 

enjoying the long unknown blessings of peace, 
became enthusiastically grateful to their illus- 
trious benefactor. 

In the month of October, 1598, the king was 
taken dangerously ill. The whole nation was 
in a panic. The touching demonstrations which 
Henry then received of the universal love and 
homage of his subjects affected him deeply. 
But few men find enough happiness in this 
world to lead them to cling very tenaciously to 
life when apparently on a dying bed. Henry 
at this time said to his attendants, 

" I have no fear of death. I do not shrink 
at all from the great journey to the spirit land. 
But I greatly regret being removed from my 
beloved country before I have restored it to 
complete prosperity." 

Happily, the fever was subdued, and he again, 
with indefatigable diligence, resumed his labors. 
To discourage the extravagance of the nobles, 
he set the example of extreme economy in all 
his personal expenses. He indulged in no gaudy 
equipage, his table was very frugally served, and 
his dress was simple in the extreme. ISTo man 
in the kingdom devoted more hours to labor. 
He met his council daily, and in all their confer- 
ences exhibited a degree of information, shrewd 

X 



322 Kino Henry IV. 

Hostility of the nobles. The Marchioness of Vemeuil. 

ness, and of comprehensive statesmanship which 
astonished the most experienced politicians who 
surrounded him. 

It was a fierce battle which the king and his 
minister were compelled to fight for many years 
against the haughty nobles, who had ever re- 
garded the mass of the people but as beasts of 
burden, made to contribute to their pleasure. 
The demands of these proud aristocrats were 
incessant and inexorable. It is a singular fact 
that, among them all, there was not a more thor- 
ough-going aristocrat than Sully himself. He 
had a perfect contempt for the people as to any 
power of self-government. They were, in his 
view, but sheep, to be carefully protected by a 
kind shepherd. It was as absurd, he thought, 
to consult them, as it would be for a shepherd 
to ask the advice of his flock. But Sully wish- 
ed to take good care of the people, to shield them 
from all unequal burdens, from all aristocratic 
usurpations, and to protect them with inflexible 
justice in person and in property. His gov- 
ernment was absolute in the extreme. 

The Marchioness of Yerneuil, in a towering 
rage, bitterly reproached the duke for prevent- 
ing her from receiving a monopoly firom the 
king, which would have secured to her an in- 



Reign of Heney IV. 323 

Integrity of Sully. The slave of love. 

come of some five hundred thousand dollars a 
year. 

'' Truly the king will be a great fool," ex- 
claimed the enraged marchioness, "if he contin- 
ues to follow your advice, and thus alienates so 
many distinguished families. On whom, pray, 
should the king confer favors, if not on his rel- 
atives and his influential friends ?" 

" What you say," replied the unbending min- 
ister, "would be reasonable enough if his maj- 
esty took the money all out of his own purse. 
But to assess a new tax upon the merchants, 
artisans, laborers, and country people will nev- 
er do. It is by them that the king and all of 
us are supported, and it is enough that they 
provide for a master, without having to main- 
tain his cousins and friends." 

For twelve years Henry, with his illustrious 
minister, labored with unintermitted zeal for 
the good of France. His love of France was 
an ever-glowing and growing passion for which 
every thing was to be surrendered. Henry was 
great in all respects but one. He was a slave 
to the passion of love. "And no one," says 
JSTapoleon, " can surrender himself to the pas- 
sion of love without forfeiting some palms of 
glory." This great frailty has left a stain upon 



324 King Henry IV. 

The king's greatness, 

his reputation which truth must not conceal, 
which the genius of history with sorrow re- 
gards, and which can never be effaced. He was 
a great statesman. His heart was warm and 
generous. His philanthropy was noble and all- 
embracing, and his devotion to the best wel- 
fare of France was sincere and intense. Wit- 
ness the following memorable prayer as he was 
just entering upon a great battle : 

'* O Lord, if thou meanest this day to punish 
me for my sins, I bow my head to the stroke 
of thy justice. Spare not the guilty. But, Lord, 
by thy holy mercy, have pity on this poor realm, 
and strike not the flock for the fault of the shep- 
herd." 

*' If God," said he at another time, " shall 
grant me the ordinary term of human life, I 
hope to see France in such a condition that ev- 
ery peasant shall be able to have a fowl in the 
pot on Sunday." 

This memorable saying shows both the be- 
nevolence of the king and the exceeding pover- 
ty, at that time, of the peasantry of France. 
Sully, in speaking of the corruption which had 
prevailed and of the measures of reform intro- 
duced, says, 

^' The i-e venue annually paid into the royal 



Reign of Henry IV. 325 

Financial skill of Sully. Co-operation of Henry. 



treasury was thirty millions. It could not be, 
I thought, that such a sum could reduce the 
kingdom of France so low. I resolved to en- 
ter upon the immense investigation. To my 
horror, I found that for these thirty millions 
given to his majesty there were extorted from 
the purses of his subjects,! almost blush to say, 
one hundred and fifty millions. After this I 
was no longer ignorant whence the misery of 
the people proceeded. I applied my cares to 
the authors of this oppression, who were the 
governors and other officers of the army, who 
all, even to the meanest, abused, in an enormous 
manner, their authority over the people. I im- 
mediately caused a decree to be issued, by which 
they were prohibited, under great penalties, to 
exact any thing from the people, under any ti- 
tle whatever, without a warrant in form." 

The king co-operated cordially with his min- 
ister in these rigorous acts of reform, and shield- 
ed him with all the pov/er of the monarchy firom 
the storm of obloquy which these measures drew 
down upon him. The proud Duke of Epernon, 
exasperated beyond control, grossly insulted 
Sully. Henry immediately wrote to his min- 
ister, " If Epernon challenges you, I will be 
vour second." 



326 King Henry IV. 

Solicitations of Gabrielle. Her death. 



The amiable/but sinning and consequently 
wretched Gabrielle was now importunate for 
the divorce, that she might be lawfully married 
to the king. But the children already born 
could not be legitimated, and Sully so clearly 
unfolded to the king the confusion which would 
thus be introduced, and the certainty that, in 
consequence of it, a disputed succession would 
deluge France in blood, that the king, ardently 
as he loved Gabrielle, was compelled to aban- 
don the plan. Gabrielle was inconsolable, and 
inveighed bitterly against Sully. The king 
for a moment forgot himself, and cruelly retort- 
ed, 

" Kjiow, woman, that a minister like Sully 
must be dearer to me than even such a friend 
as you." 

This harshness broke the heart of the unhap- 
py Gabrielle. She immediately left Fontaine- 
bleau, where she was at that time with the king, 
and retired to Paris, saying, as she bade Hen- 
ry adieu, "We shall never meet again." Her 
words proved true. On reaching Paris she was 
seized with convulsions, gave birth to a lifeless 
child, and died. Poor Gabrielle! Let com- 
passion drop a tear over her grave ! She was 
by nature one of the most lovely and noble of 



Eeign of Heney IV. 327 

Grief of the king. The divorce. 

women. She lived in a day of darkness and 
of almost universal corruption. Yielding to the 
temptation of a heroic monarch's love, she fell, 
and a subsequent life of sorrow was terminated 
by an awful death, probably caused by poison. 

Henry, as soon as informed of her sickness, 
mounted his horse, to gallop to Paris. He had 
proceeded but half way when he was met by a 
courier who informed him that Gabrielle was 
dead. The dreadful blow staggered the king, 
and he would have fallen from his horse had he 
not been supported by his attendants. He re- 
tired to Fontainebleau, shut himself up from all 
society, and surrendered himself to the most 
bitter grief. Sully in vain endeavored to con- 
sole him. It was long before he could turn his 
mind to any business. But there is no pain 
whose anguish time will not diminish. New 
cares and new loves at length engrossed the 
heart where Gabrielle had for a few brief years 
so supremely reigned. 

The utterly profligate Marguerite, now that 
Gabrielle was dead, whom she of course hated, 
was perfectly willing to assent to a divorce. 
While arrangements were making to accomplish 
this end, the king chanced to meet a fascinat- 
ing, yet pert and heartless coquette, Henriette 



328 King Heney IV. 

Henriette d'Entragiies. Bold fidelity of Sully. 

d'Entragues, daughter of Francis Balzac, Lord 
of Entragues. Though exceedingly beautiful, 
she was a calculating, soulless girl, who was 
glad of a chance to sell herself for rank and 
money. She thus readily bartered her beauty 
to the king, exacting, with the most cool finan- 
ciering, as the price, a written promise that he 
would marry her as soon as he should obtain a 
divorce from Marguerite of Yalois, upon condi- 
tion that she, within the year, should bear him 
a son. 

The king, having written the promise, placed 
it in the hands of Sully. The bold minister 
read it, then tore it into fragments. The king, 
amazed at such boldness, exclaimed in a pas- 
sion, " Sir, I believe that you are mad." 

"True, sire, I am," replied Sully; "but 
would to God that I were the only madman in 
France." 

But Henry, notwithstanding his anger, could 
not part from a minister whose services were so 
invaluable. He immediately drew up another 
promise, which he placed in the hands of the 
despicable beauty. This rash and guilty pledge 
was subsequently the cause of great trouble to 
the king. 

Henry having obtained a divorce, the nation 



1600.] Reign of Heney IV. 329 

Marriage to Maria of Medici. Anecdote. 

demanded that lie should form a connection 
which should produce a suitable heir to inherit 
the throne. Thus urged, and as Henrietta did 
not give birth to the wished-for son, Henry re- 
luctantly married, in the year 1600, Maria of 
Medici, niece of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. 

Maria was a domineering, crafty, ambitious 
woman, who embittered the life of the king. 
She was very jealous, and with reason enough, 
of the continued influence of Henrietta ; and the 
palace was the scene of disgraceful domestic 
broils. Henry, in one of his letters to Sully, 
describes the queen as " terribly robust and 
healthy. But when she gave birth to a son 
who was undeniably heir to the throne, thus al- 
laying the fears of a disputed succession, the 
whole nation rejoiced, and Henry became some- 
what reconciled to his unattractive spouse. The 
king was exceedingly fond of this child. One 
day the Spanish embassador, a dignified Cas- 
tilian, was rather suddenly ushered into the 
royal presence at Fontainebleau. The monarch 
was on all fours on the floor, running about the 
room with the little dauphin on his back. Rais- 
ing his eyes, he said to the embassador, 

"Are you a father?" 

" Yes, sire," was the reply. 



330 King Henry IV. 

Grand political scheme. 

"Then I may finish my play," said Henry, 
and he took another trot around the room. 

Henrietta and her relatives were greatly ex- 
asperated that the king did not fulfill his prom- 
ise of marriage. The father and daughter, join- 
ed by the Count d'Auvergne, plotted against 
the king's life. They were arrested and con- 
demned to death. The king, however, trans- 
muted their punishment to exile. 

One of the grandest schemes of Henry de- 
serves particular mention. Reflecting deeply 
upon the wars with which Europe had ever been 
desolated, and seeing the occasion for this in 
the innumerable states and nations into which 
Europe was divided, of various degrees of pow- 
er, and each struggling for its own selfish inter- 
est, he proposed to unite all the states of Eu- 
rope in one vast Christian Republic. The whole 
continent was to be divided into fifteen states, 
as uniform in size and power as possible. These 
states were to be, according to their choice, mo- 
narchical or republican. They were to be asso- 
ciated on a plan somewhat resembling that of 
the United States of America. 

Nothing can more conclusively show the en- 
tire absence of correct notions of religious toler- 
ation prevailing at that day than the plan pro- 



1610.] Eeign of Heney IV. 331 

Mode of preventing religious quarrels. 

posed to prevent religious quarrels. Wherever 
any one form of faitli predominated, that was to 
be maintained as the national faith. In Cath- 
olic states, there were to be no Protestants ; in 
Protestant states, no Catholics. The minority, 
however, were not to be exterminated ; they 
were only to be compelled to emigrate to the 
comitries where their own form of faith prevail- 
ed. All pagans and Mohammedans were to be 
driven out of Europe into Asia. To enforce 
this change, an army of two hundred and sev- 
enty thousand infantry, fifty thousand cavalry, 
two hundred cannon, and one hundred and twen- 
ty ships of war, was deemed amply sufficient. 

The first step was to secure the co-operation 
of two or three of the most powerful kings of 
Europe. This would render success almost cer- 
tain. Sully examined the plan with the utmost 
care in all its details. Henry wished first to 
secure the approval of England, Sweden, and 
Denmark. 

But, in the midst of these schemes of grand- 
eur, Henry was struck down by the hand of 
an assassin. On the fourteenth of May, 1610, 
the king left the Louvre at four o'clock in the 
afternoon to visit Sully, who was sick. Prep- 
arations were making for the public entry of 



332 King Heney IV. [1610. 



Assassination of the king. 



the queen, who, after a long delay, had just been 
crowned. The city was thronged ; the day was 
fine, and the curtains of the coach were drawn 
up. Several nobles were in the spacious car- 
riage with the king. As the coach was turn- 
ing out of the street Honore into the narrow 
street Ferronnerie, it was stopped by two carts, 
which blocked up the way. Just at that in- 
stant a man from the crowd sprang upon a 
spoke of the wheel, and struck a dagger into the 
king just above the heart. Instantly repeating 
the blow, the heart was pierced. Blood gush- 
ed from the wound and from the mouth of the 
king, and, without uttering a word, he sank dead 
in the arms of his friends. 

The wretched assassin, a fanatic monk, was 
immediately siezed by the guard. With diffi- 
culty they protected him from being torn to 
pieces by the infuriated people. His name was 
Francis Ravaillac. According to the savage 
custom of the times, he was subsequently put 
to death with the most frightful tortures. 

The lifeless body of the king was immedi- 
ately taken to the Tuileries and placed upon a 
bed. Surgeons and physicians hurried to the 
room only to gaze upon his corpse. No lan- 
guage can depict the grief and despair of France 



1610.] Reign of Heney IV. 333 

Character of Henry IV. The truth to he enforced. 

at his death. He had won the love of the whole 
nation, and, to the present day, no one hears 
the name of Henry the Fourth mentioned in 
France but with affection. He was truly the 
father of his people. All conditions, employ- 
ments, and professions were embraced in his 
comprehensive regard. He spared no toil to 
make France a happy land. He was a man of 
genius and of instinctive magnanimity. In con- 
versation he had no rival. His profound and 
witty sayings which have been transmitted to 
us are sufficient to form a volume. His one 
great and almost only fault sadly tarnishes his 
otherwise fair and honorable fame. 

In Henry commenced the reign of the house 
of Bourbon. For nearly two hundred years the 
family retained the crown. It is now expelled, 
and the members are wandering in exile through 
foreign lands. 

There is one great truth which this narrative 
enforces : it is the doctrine oi freedoTu of con- 
science. It was the denial of this simple truth 
which deluged France in blood and woe. The 
recognition of this one sentiment would have 
saved for France hundreds of thousands of lives, 
and millions of treasure. Let us take warn- 
ing. We need it. 



334 King Henry IV. 

Free speech. Free press. Free men. 

Let us emblazon upon our banner the noble 
words, ''^Toleration — perfect civil and relig- 
ious toleration. " But Toleration is not a slave. 
It is a spirit of light and of liberty. It has 
much to give, but it has just as much to de- 
mand. It bears the olive-branch in one hand, 
and the gleaming sword in the other. I grant 
to yoit^ it says, perfect liberty of opinion and of 
expression, and I demand of you the same. 

Let us then inscribe upon the arch which 
spans our glorious Union, making us one in its 
celestial embrace, '•''Freedom of speech, freedom 
of the press, and free menP 

Then shall that arch beam upon us like God's 
bow of promise in the cloud, proclaiming that 
this land shall never be deluged by the surges 
of civil war — that it never shall be inundated by 
flames and blood. 

The human mind is now so roused that it 
will have this liberty ; and if there are any in- 
stitutions of religion or of civil law which can 
not stand this scrutiny, they are doomed to die. 
The human mind will move with untrammeled 
sweep through the whole range of religious doc- 
trine, and around the whole circumference and 
into the very centre of all political assumptions. 

If the Catholic bishop have a word to say, let 



Keign of Heney IV. 335 

Practical application of the moral. 

him say it. If some one, rising in the spirit 
and power of Martin Luther, has a reply to 
make, let him make it. Those who wish to 
listen to the one or the other, let them do so. 
Those who wish to close their ears, let them 
have their way. 

Our country is one. Our liberty is nation- 
al. Let us then grant toleration every where 
throughout our wide domain, in Maine and in 
Georgia, amid the forests of the Aroostook and 
upon the plains of Kansas. 



THE END. 



C( 



